She had to self publish her books and basically arm twisted Louis B. Mayer into making "The Fountainhead". Even then, Gary Cooper (a known Republican), couldn't make heads or tails of the big courtroom speech of Howard Roark which makes a filibuster speech by Ted Cruz seem coherent by comparison.
Ayn Rand admired but never understood capitalism. Which explains why she ended up needing to rely on Social Security in her later years after investing her money in her fanatical cult organization. (And the fact she smoked like a chimney and thought she could will her way into not getting cancer.)
She had twisted personal relationships and abused people. Look at her relationship with Nathaniel Braden, as an example...talk about f*cked up. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/us/nathaniel-branden-ayn-rands-collaborator-and-paramour-dies-at-84.html She had the nerve to talk about "love being earned"? She basically abused her husband's love and still had an affair with a younger man. Then when the younger man had an affair with a younger woman, she flipped out. Hypocrite!
If you want better examples of women libertarians, I'd suggest Rose Wilder Lane who was far more active and prolific as a writer and Isabel Paterson who was active way before Rand decided to come over from Russia.
As for "Atlas Shrugged", I would quote Dorothy Parker: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Whitaker Chambers couldn't stomach it. In a review, he wrote: ”I find it a remarkably silly book. It is certainly a bumptious one. Its story is preposterous." And, what's more, he adds: "Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal." William Buckley said he had to "flog himself" in order to finish the book.
Personally speaking, I think you'd get a lot more out of reading "Pimp" by Iceberg Slim or any Donald Goines novel than you would from Ayn Rand. At least THEY understood capitalism better than she did and they were both better writers.
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