One Cheer for Ayn

by James Como (April 2016)

Some fifty-five years ago – I would have been fourteen: the Yankees beat the Reds in a great World Series, great, that is, if you were a Yankee fan – I began my lamentable Ayn Rand mini-jag. I found her at a local shop on Broadway in Astoria, Queens, called the Patrick Henry Bookstore. My father was along, and when we left he warned me against the shop. A man of the moderate Right, he called it “fanatical,” largely owing to the ample display of John Birch Society material and of None Dare Call it Treason, a conspiracy screed if ever there was one. I bought that book, it proved my father right (according to it my Polish grandmother was suspect), and I never returned to the store (which closed soon after).  more>>>