Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [271]
Anna actually urged her to come back: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”
working in a restaurant alongside Nick and Joe: TPOAR, p. 91
to see the woman in Ayn Rand: The phrase comes from notes AR made on Kira Argounova’s feelings for Leo Kovalensky and Andrei, circa 1930 (JOAR, p. 50).
romance should never be mixed with suffering or pity: AS, p. 348.
a woman should avoid cooking or cleaning: “The Husband I Bought,” TEAR, p. 13.
“an answering voice, an answering hymn, an echo”: Ideal, an unproduced play written in 1934, TEAR, p. 287.
practiced her new language: These letters have been lost, according to the ARI.
“put so much weight on success and so little on failure”: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”
signed two unpublished stories from that period “O. O. Lyons”: Editor’s preface to “Escort,” TEAR, p. 103. Rand admirer Fred Cookinham points out that “O. O.” probably referred to Oscar and Oswald, stuffed lions given as a gift to Rand by O’Connor.
absorbing the civil-libertarian iconoclasm: AR would have known of Garrett’s work, but whether or not she actually read it is a subject of dispute. Journalist Justin Raimondo accuses her of pirating narrative devices from Garrett’s The Driver (1922) when writing AS (Justin Raimondo, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Burlingame, Calif.: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993], pp. 196–205).
Calumet “K”: Letter to Barbara Brandt, December 11, 1945 (LOAR, p. 252).
books she didn’t like: TPOAR, p. 101.
“The Husband I Bought” (circa 1926): As the story appears in TEAR, it seems too nuanced and sophisticated to have been written in 1926 and gives the impression of having been edited (TEAR, pp. 3–39).
exercise in grieving for Lev Bekkerman: My thanks to LP for making this point in his introduction to “The Husband I Bought,” TEAR, p. 4.
“human herds”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 35).
strangle and dismember an eight-year-old Los Angeles girl: “Marion Parker’s Murder Confessed by Hickman,” Los Angeles Times, December 27, 1927.
“A strong man can eventually trample society”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 38).
“All the crimes in history have always been perpetrated by the mob”: Letter to John Temple Graves, August 12, 1936 (LOAR, p. 34).
“She hated being afraid”: Author interview with Joan and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 24, 2004.
“From now on, [you will permit] no thought about yourself”: July—September 1927 (JOAR, p. 48).
Ayn Rand and Frank O’Connor were married: In his book AR:SOL, Paxton states that AR’s temporary visa was set to expire permanently in April 1929. Yet based on handwritten notes recording her visa extensions on the official ship manifest of the S.S. De Grasse, her final extension was granted in July 1928, suggesting that her visa had already expired by the time of her marriage (De Grasse Ship Manifest, February 19, 1926; vol. 8626, p. 2, line 13, National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, roll 3800, “Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, N.Y, 1897–1957,” National Archives and Records Administration Northeast Region, New York, N.Y.).
she and her husband took a borrowed car: The car belonged to one of the friends who acted as official witnesses: Dorotha Bensinger and Harrison James Carter (“Application for Immigration Visa,” C-file number C-3447608, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.). One of her procedural witnesses was her boss in the RKO wardrobe department, costume designer Walter Plunkett (“Petition for Citizenship No. 32336,” National Archives, N.Y.).
She recrossed the border: Henceforth she seems to have reported her original immigration date as 1929 instead of 1926 (Bureau of the Census, Fiftieth Census of the United States: 1930, Los Angeles, Assembly District 55, April