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ANNE CONOVER HELLER has written for such publications as Lear’s, Mademoiselle, TriQuarterly, and Esquire. She is the former fiction editor of Esquire and Redbook, and a former executive editor at Condé Nast Publications. She lives in Manhattan.

There is a scene in Heller's biography where the controversial writer Rand and her husband delight in the fact that they can select from the more expensive items on a cafeteria menu after selling the movie rights of The Fountainhead. The scene illustrates Heller's ability to capture the essence of her subject. Rand, never a fan of the poor masses, was elated to remove herself from the mob. Although Heller was denied access to the Ayn Rand Institute's archives, because she is not an advocate for Rand's ideas, she still performs beautifully. Heller conducted over 50 interviews, including three long interviews with Rand's former lover, Nathaniel Branden. She traces Rand's childhood in Russia; her arrival in America; her unconventional marriage to actor Frank O'Connor; her work as a playwright and novelist; the development of objectivism, Rand's philosophy that embraces capitalist individualism and rejects altruism; and her long-standing extramarital affair. VERDICT An impartial, well-documented, and sweeping biography for fans and scholars of Rand; with a bibliography and 100-plus pages of notes.—Stacy Russo, Chapman Univ. Libs., Orange, CA

Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum was born to Jewish parents in 1905 Russia. Ayn Rand left Russia in 1926 for America and founded her anticollectivist philosophy, Objectivism, a philosophy of free market capitalism and the pursuit of self-interest as a moral good. Depressive, pill-taking, chain-smoking and manipulative, Rand's life was defined by a longtime Sunset Boulevard–like affair with Nathaniel Branden, who went on to start the self-esteem movement. At the same time, the combustible Rand was married to a passive man with matinee-idol looks. Magazine editor and journalist Heller competently describes Rand's feuds with William F. Buckley and with her sister, who had remained in the U.S.S.R., and the more courtly relationship Rand had with publisher Bennett Cerf. This objective account of the Objectivist Rand will interest her still large and devoted readership. Photos. (Nov. 3)