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10,000 Tampa Avenue
Chatsworth, California
August 18, 1945
P.F.C. Gerald James
Tr E 113 Cav. Recon. Sqd.
APO 758 c/o P.M. NYC
Dear Gerald James:
Thank you. Iām glad you thought āThe Fountainheadā was āout of this world.ā Thatās what I intended it to beāin more ways than one.
To answer all your questions in proper order:
1. How was the book received by the public? Beautifullyāfor which Iām very grateful. It was made by the publicāagainst the opposition of all the intellectual Tooheys. The bookās been growing in sales for two years, through word-of-mouth publicity, until now itās high on all the best-seller lists.
2. Who is Frank OāConnor? Howard Roark, or as near to it as anyone I know. Incidentally, heās my husband.
3. Are my characters copies of people in real life? No. Iāll let you in on a professional secret: Donāt ever believe the stories about authors putting people into novels. That idea is a kind of joke on both authors and readers. All the readers believe that authors do it. All the authors know that it canāt be done. What an author actually does is this: he observes real life, deduces the abstract principles behind certain actions or characters, and then creates his own characters out of the abstraction. The resemblance to real people is one of principleānot of literal, personal copying.
4. Have I embodied some of my own qualities in Dominique? Yes. Am I Dominique? No. As the enclosed picture of me will demonstrate. Sorry to disappoint you there, but I never thought Iād live to be a pin-up girl, so I couldnāt pass up such a chanceāif that space on your wall is still blank.
5. Have I published any other novels? One other. My first novel was called āWe the Livingā and was published in 1936.
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6. What type of house am I living in now? In a house which I own and which is extremely modernāmade of steel, glass and concrete, mostly glass. So you see, Iām the kind of ball player who endorses only what she really smokesāand smokes only what she really endorses. And that goes for all the other ideas, principles and philosophy endorsed in āThe Fountainhead,ā besides architecture.
Iām glad you liked my book. Weāre even. I liked your letter.
With my best wishes to you and your friend,
Sincerely,
Ayn Rand