E-mail brought me this press release:
'The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics' - A Breakthrough Book Puts Ayn Rand's Critics To The Test.On the 100th Anniversary of Novelist Ayn Rand's birth, a new book will be released with never before published essays from Best-Selling Author Ayn Rand's private journals about her former lover, Nathanial Branden.
(PRWEB) (DALLAS, TEXAS August 24, 2004) -- February 2, 2005, on the 100th anniversary of her birth, the world will hear the untold story of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand's life with the release of James Valliant's new book, 'The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics', a work that challenges the biased assumptions of Rand's critics previously held as truth. For the first time, Rand's never-before-seen diary entries are used along with the only in-depth analysis of the biographies written by psychologist Nathanial and his former wife Barbara Branden--the most widely read sources of information on her life-to reveal that they are riddled with errors and misconceptions, thus giving a long absent voice to Rand's defenders. By setting the record straight, this overdue work brings justice to one of the most prolific and influential thinkers of our time.
And it's justice that author Valliant has sought throughout his career as an attorney in San Diego. It's his hope that here, too, justice will be served by exposing the full story of Rand's life- until now ignored by her critics. "So much of Rand criticism is really just based on a legend authored by Barbara and Nathanial Branden. I hope this book will make people take a second look at Rand: the importance of her work and the meaning of her life," said Valliant.
In a work that New York Heroes Society President Robert Begley calls "brilliant" and author Casey Fahy says is "judgment day for the Brandens," Valliant shifts the focus back to the core of the thinker whose philosophy espoused the concept of man as "a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with production and achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute," the theme of her best-selling novels, 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'.
Mr. Valliant is currently completing a new book on the historical origins of the New Testament titled, 'Behind the Cross'.
I look forward to it. I read Valliant's essay when it was published on the web and there were a number of discrepancies he pointed to which had never occurred to me. This irked me because I had read both The Passion of Ayn Rand and Judgment Day when they were published, and I didn't do the detective work that Valliant has done. The addition of previously unpublished journal material should make the book just that more valuable, and I look forward to reading it again.
In one thing I am sure that I'm in the minority: the book that actually turned on my interest in Ayn Rand was not Atlas Shrugged, but the Brandens' own Who Is Ayn Rand?, originally published in 1962. I remember reading those four essays ("The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," "Objectivism and Psychology," "The Literary Method of Ayn Rand," by Nathaniel Branden, and a biographical essay by Barbara Branden) and thinking, "Is all this possible?"
I still say it is. I haven't re-read that book since 1973 or '74, but both Brandens now disavow it, so I think it probably deserves another look.