[Author's Note: I posted this review to Amazon.com -- where so far it has been rated "not helpful" by the majority of readers. Go figure.]

I don't believe I've ever had the privilege of reading any book that so thoroughly, completely, relentlessly, and shamelessly trashes another human being in such minute detail.

Such is the loathing of Ayn Rand evident in Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult that I found it difficult to get through each page. It wasn't that my sympathy for Rand's ideas made me wish to defend her. Far from it. I bought the book because I wanted to read a comprehensive account of all the dirt surrounding the Objectivist movement's many schisms and catfights. I was also curious to plumb the depths of Rand's personality -- which, by most accounts, was singularly unpleasant.

Despite the fact that I would, therefore, make a receptive reader for Walker's screed, I couldn't stop myself from dissecting his every transparent attack for the ploy that it was. While he does provide plenty of quotes from former members high within the Objectivist hierarchy, many of his declarations regarding the shortcomings of Objectivism -- and of Rand -- take the form of quotes from unnamed or unremarkable former Objectivists, thoroughly embittered and traumatized by their experiences. Several times Walker draws conclusions about Rand by citing the work of an author who created a fictionalized version of her; this would be like using the short-lived Henry Winkler sitcom Monty* (which ran from January to February of 1994) to "prove" why Rush Limbaugh is unpleasant.

Despite the constant drone of Walker's ad hominem attacks, there is plenty here to indicate that, at least within Rand's immediate sphere of influence, and as typified by Leonard Peikoff's attitude towards anyone who is not an "orthodox" Objectivist, there is much about Objectivism that is cultlike, and there was much about Rand that was unpleasant. I only wish the author could have spent more time -- pardon the coming pun -- objectively relating these details without resorting to trying to manipulate me. Just as I can't passively watch advertising or marketing of any kind without dissecting the nature of the propaganda, I couldn't get through more than a sentence or two of Walker's work without seeing yet another intellectually dishonest attempt to make me despise Rand.

Says Walker of the young Rand:

By all accounts, Alissa was not a very lovable child. It appears that she compensated for rejection by playing from her strong suit. This meant asserting intellectual and moral superiority over those around her.

Pronounces Walker:

A sympathetic critic will credit Rand with one fairly good pop-novel of ideas (The Fountainhead) and a volume's-worth of provocative essays. That achievement is less than one of a genius. Rather it is the achievement of a very smart, obsessed philoso-fiction or propaganda-fiction writer, whose literature may be third rate and whose philosophizing may be third-rate, but whose obsessions elevate the hybrid product to the level of highly intriguing second-rate.

The entire book reads like that, in between real and imagined accounts of Objectivist dirt: Nathaniel Branden was an egomaniac who's signature took up a third of a page. Leonard Peikoff is a mincing, latent homosexual who uses cooking metaphors and probably makes the Nazi salute with a limp wrist. Rand had a sucky Russian education. Rand's cigarette holder was absurdly long. Rand wore a cape, the sure sign of a nutbar. Rand was ugly.

But perhaps the worst, most philosophy-shattering indictment of Ayn Rand made by Walker within the whole of this mighty work:

Ayn Rand was bad at Scrabble!

There, I've said it.

Most revealing about the book is the fictional mini-chapter at the end, in which Walker indulges in a fantasy retelling of Rand's life as it could have been, if only she'd had the decency to live it as Mr. Walker thinks she should have. This bizarre series of subtle insults says much by what it doesn't say, and renders The Ayn Rand Cult little more than a parody of itself.

If you want a book that savagely, relentlessly, and dishonestly kicks the Yoda-like corpse of the emaciated troll that was Ayn Rand at her death (I'll bet Walker wishes he'd thought of that choice turn of phrase), buy The Ayn Rand Cult. You won't be sorry.

If you want a book that actually tries to tell the truth, though -- and certainly there's plenty of negative truth about Rand out there -- you'd best keep shopping.