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The Curse of Ayn Rand's Heir

Leonard Peikoff dedicated his life to promoting the author’s vision of freedom and self-determination. But at what cost?

Reading the book was “like putting an electric plug into the wall,” Peikoff said later, after “waiting to be connected to some source of power.” The novel, which tells the story of an idealistic architect who would rather see his creation destroyed than compromise his vision, lays out a blueprint for living and working on one’s own terms. At her Saturday-night gatherings, she would share the latest section, and the group—which included the now-married Barbara and Nathaniel Branden, as well as the young economist Alan Greenspan, whom Rand called “the Undertaker” for his dour mien—would offer feedback and discuss the philosophical points at hand. Jennifer Burns, a history professor at Stanford and the author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, told me she has never met Peikoff but is not surprised by his rift with his daughter, given his devotion to a woman with so many broken relationships of her own.

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