It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand [Paperback]

Jerome Tuccille (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1972

This edition of It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand contains much of the text that appeared in the original edition—revised and edited to conform to modern style—plus new chapters dealing with events that took place after the book was first published. Some of the new material deals with my campaign for Governor of New York as the Free Libertarian Party candidate, a discussion of events that transpired on the American political scene after that benighted campaign, plus thoughts on my current political and spiritual leanings. The perennial success of It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand has startled no one more than me. Sales started slowly, then began to pick up over the years, until the book became an underground classic that has gained readership over the decades. It should be read as political memoir, a first-hand account of a political movement, mostly fact, but with fictional elements and hyperbole added for effect. A reviewer once said that most memoirs are neither fact nor fiction; they are the truth as the author remembers it.

So it is with It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jerome Tuccille has authored more than twenty books, including best-selling, highly acclaimed biographies of Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Alan Greenspan, and the Hunts of Texas, and several novels. Tuccille’s book, Heretic: Confessions of an ex-Catholic Rebel, was a Barnes & Noble Publisher’s Choice selection. Tuccille is vice president of communications at a major financial services firm. He previously taught at the New School for Social Research in New York City and is a former Free Libertarian candidate for Governor of New York. He is a member of Authors Guild and American Society of Journalists and Authors.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction by J.D. Tuccille

It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand has been surprisingly long-lived, developing a following well beyond what anybody would expect of a gonzo political book with a small original printing. I know this, because in a stab at low-cost cloning, my father gave me the same name that he sported and I've always lived in big-name urban areas while my parents dwelt in suburban seclusion; as a result I've fielded my father's fan mail for all of my adult life.

I did get the last laugh, though, when I swiped one of his utility bills to get out of jury duty. So why did this book grow such long legs? Well, in years of pawing through letters and email about Ayn Rand, I've come across some common threads. One involves requests that I mail copies of the book to addresses in Australia and Germany. Apparently, the two countries share one dog-eared copy and would like another to hand around. I hope that this reprint satisfies that request.

But along with the intercontinental mail orders was a strong appreciation of the book on two levels. The first, from readers who found Ayn Rand early on and appreciate a familiar sense of the lone voice in the wilderness. They'd spent years huddling in ideological isolation, tagged by acquaintances on the coasts as atavistic heirs to Neanderthal man and by heartland neighbors as pinko subversives (finally accomplishing the left-right fusion that so many freedom-minded people had long-sought). Tales of similar suffering through the lonely years of the libertarian movement's foundation soothed a bit of the residual sting.

The other messages came from readers who'd come of age as the libertarian movement gained a certain ... well ... not maturity, but momentum. Unlike earlier readers, they hadn't had to suffer through idiotic legislation and intrusive regulation in frustrated solitude; they'd had like-minded friends to be frustrated right alongside 'em.

To these newer readers, Ayn Rand gave a sense of continuity, a connection to an age when now-hallowed scholars and leaders called each other filthy names in each others' living rooms; when Murray Rothbard purged deviationists and a pre-Wired Lou Rossetto gave the black power salute on the Columbia campus. A time when Galambosians (whatever happened to them?) and their ilk constituted much of the pro-freedom foot-soldiery and the spirit of Ragnar Danneskjold reined.

That connection to the early free-wheeling radicalism of libertarianism stands in stark contrast to the relatively sober and clean-shaven movement of today. After years of striving-- with good reason-- for a modicum of respectability, the ranks of think tankers, jacket-and-tied magazine editors and prize-winning economists has swelled impressively. Anybody who has nodded off while sipping white wine and discussing corporate welfare at a think tank meet-'n'-greet knows just how successful libertarians have been in raising a new crop of sane, stable activists. Well, in relative terms, anyway.

But progress towards trimming the tentacles of the state has been grindingly slow, with two tentacles sprouting for every one cut away. With the so-called "Republican Revolutionaries" of the U.S. Congress neutered, whupped and sent home hungry, the respectable road to freedom promises to be a frustrating path for people who'd already been drawing up floor plans for their new homes in Galt's Gulch. Even so, most young libertarians are willing to buckle down and put in the time that it takes-- to crank out the research pieces, to run professional political campaigns and to play reasonable talking head across a TV frame from perfectly coifed Stalinists.

But others, here and there, feel that need to be just a little dangerous again. They want to have some fun, to call the good senator at 4 a.m. for a chat about his vote, to wave good-bye to the nice IRS agent as he leaves the audit with a bag of dope carefully slipped into his briefcase, to lean forward in front of the studio audience and say, "Oh yeah, Pat? Let's rumble."

In a post-Reagan world where wide-spread anti-government sentiment co-exists with metastasizing tax bills, White House enemies lists, planned community growth and the Waco massacre, these young, agitated activists want to do something, but they combine a merciful sense of the absurd with their outrage. The outrage sees the world for what it is, as anti-crime measures are used to justify currency, travel and employment controls that can turn even the simplest encounters with officialdom into the equivalent of a body cavity search. Even at the time that Ayn Rand was written, who would have imagined that a routine job interview could ever involve the discussion of bodily fluids? Hell, I still don't want to imagine it- -but like most of my contemporaries, I do have to submit to the damned urine drug tests. Then there's the conversion of the Social Security number into the tracking beacon of modern life-- we've all been numbered, tagged and released into the wild. Want to escape the scrutiny? There's always emigration--or nuts and berries in the Rockies. Given the circumstances, outrage is almost a mild reaction.

But outrage by itself is no fun--it creates lousy drinking buddies and tends to lead to embarrassing large-point headlines or, at least, lots of running around in the woods wearing mis-matched camouflage. A sense of the absurd allows room for humor as yet another item in the top dresser drawer becomes illegal. The absurd lets me take a new boss' advice for beating the urine test-- the same boss who'll can me if her recommended technique fails. It also allows for a sense of perspective when escapades in the underbrush beckon. When the latest solid policy proposal by our sober think tank colleagues gets converted by the congressional meatgrinder of ideas into a plan for laying asphalt across a committee chairman's district, absurdity is an absolute necessity.

And It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand supplies a healthy dose of the absurd. It's radicalism with a banana peel, a manifesto as written by Groucho that's both a healthy complement to the patient activists in suits and an antidote to the absurdity of modern life. For the impatient freedom-lover, it's a call to arms and a reminder that jihad is probably not the way to go. And somewhere in all that it strikes a real chord. I should know, because I'm still fielding the fan mail. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Stein & Day Pub; 1st Stein and Day pbk. ed edition (June 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812815270
• ISBN-13: 978-0812815276
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,501,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jerome Tuccille is the author of twenty-seven books, including best-selling, award-winning biographies of the Gallo wine dynasty, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Alan Greenspan, and the Hunts of Texas, and several novels. Tuccille's latest biography is Gallo Be Thy Name, released by Phoenix Books in 2009, a history of the Gallo wine clan and its roots in organized crime. Gallo Be Thy Name has been named one of the best books of 2009 by Reason magazine, and one of the best business books of 2009 by University of California Library System. Other awards are pending. The author's true crime memoir, Gallery of Fools, has been optioned for a movie. A revised and updated edition was published in December 2010

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who is John Galt? And does he have a sense of humor?, September 3, 2007

By 

Eric A. Isaacson (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand : 25th Anniversary Edition (Paperback)

If you care about the history of the libertarian movement - and already know the names Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Murray Rothbard, and Karl Hess - then you're apt to find Tuccille's book an absolutely hilarious romp, as I did.

Unless, of course, you're an Objectivist fundamentalist of the sort who wears $-sign cufflinks, drinking Kool-Aid at the Fountainhead in Galt's Gulch while chanting the mantra "A is A." In that case, you just might fail to see the humor as Tuccille skewers your sacred cows.

If none of the foregoing means much to you, then chances are good that Tuccille's book won't either. Tuccille spins a fantastically funny yarn for those who already are intimately familiar with American libertarianism. Those who are not, I'm sorry to say, probably will find little of interest in the book.

Eric Alan Isaacson

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best insider's look at the libertarian movement, January 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand : 25th Anniversary Edition (Paperback)

Jerome Tuccille documents his journey from Ayn Rand to Goldwater to Rothbard -- and back, beyond, and in between. This is a hilarious book if one knows the names and ideas being discussed; a newcomer may want to familiarize himself with names like Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, Nathaniel & Barbara Branden, Leonard Liggio, Henry Paolucci, and the like before reading this book. Tuccille combines fiction and fact -- with much exaggeration -- to document the young libertarian movement from the mid-fifties to 1971. If the sequel is ever finished, I hope it can match this great book!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atlas Guffawed, August 12, 2008

By 

CaligvlaXXI - See all my reviews

This review is from: It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand (Paperback)

When I was a young man, I devoured all of Ayn Rand's works, and they helped shape the libertarian perspective I have today. When I got my hands on Tuccille's book in hardback years ago, I read it through in one sitting, lauging all the way. I was surprised and delighted to see the book back in print again; it was like running into an old friend one hasn't seen in a long time.