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THE REAL ROOT OF EVIL 111
Other young men orbited around Rand during this time, including
Thaddeus Ashby, a Harvard dropout and later an editor at the libertarian
magazine Faith and Freedom. Like Mannheimer, Ashby enjoyed
Rand’s favor for several months. She offered him advice about his writing
career, argued with him in long philosophical conversations, and
offered him lodging at the ranch on several occasions. Eventually the
O’Connors discovered that Ashby had fabricated details of his past and
they cut him off. Although his friendship with Rand was platonic, he
felt a distinct current of sexuality running beneath the surface of their
interactions. Another young man who did editorial work for Rand, Evan
Wright, reported a similar dynamic. 27
Frank was both indispensible to Rand’s happiness and unable to satisfy
her completely. His unwillingness to engage her intellectually made
their relationship possible, for she would never have tolerated dissent
from her husband. Yet Frank’s distaste for dispute and argument left
a void that Rand sought to fi ll with others. Later she would confess to
friends that during their years in California she had considered divorce.
Frank, on the other hand, had found a comfortable accommodation
with their differences. When Rand proclaimed to friends that Frank was
the power behind the throne, he joked back, “Sometimes I think I am
the throne, the way I get sat on.” 28 Frank was well aware of the trade-offs
he had made. Rand’s wealth enabled him to work the land with little
worry about fi nances. In return he did whatever was needed to keep
her happy. On the surface he was dependent on her. But like Ruth Hill,
Frank understood that Ayn needed him too.
As much as Rand despised California, these were intellectually rich
years for her. When her fi rst real break from screenwriting came in June
1945 she leapt at the opportunity to fi nally pursue her own intellectual
interests. Early in the year she had mapped out her fi rst notes for “The
Strike,” later to become Atlas Shrugged, but now her interest returned
to nonfi ction. 29 On the day of her last story conference with Wallis she
lingered in Hollywood to buy fi ve evening gowns and an enormous volume
of Aristotle. The new purchase refl ected her expanding plans for
“The Moral Basis of Individualism.” As she told Paterson, she had “realized
the book must be much, much more than merely a restatement of
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