Dorothy Parker once said of a novel that it was not a book to be tossed aside lightly, but thrown with great force.

     Here comes a book, not a novel, holding a morbid fascination for those interested in the life of Ayn Rand (1905-1982) and in the Objectivist movement born of her ideas and the organizational efforts of her erstwhile disciple, psychologist Nathaniel Branden, who met her when he was twenty and Rand was forty-five. The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics by James S. Valliant is an artifact of cultist mentality that should neither be tossed aside lightly nor thrown with great force but lifted by thumb and forefinger and dropped into the garbage chute across the hall. One can virtually hear the author yelling from the bleachers, cheering Ayn Rand on as she struggles to make sense of Branden's protestations during the long-drawn-out devolution of their affair; as if she were hitting lobs out of the park with each new observation and query.

     There is a case to be made for publishing these excruciating notes, much as one suspects she would have preferred they never see the light of day. It is the only "response" Ayn Rand can ever make to the accounts published years later by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Unless, of course, one regards James Valliant as channeling Miss Rand's ghost.

     The first half of the book is a kind of tediously belabored book review of Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986), Nathaniel Branden's Judgment Day (1989), and "In Answer to Ayn Rand" (1968), the Brandens' response to an attack by Rand in The Objectivist. One debunking chapter, "Less Than Zero," expends ink on the question of how Rand picked the name "Rand" (she had been born Alice Rosenbaum); it apparently wasn't based on the typewriter, contrary to what Barbara Branden suggests in her biography. Well, assuming that Barbara Branden credited testimony she should not have credited, could this simply be an innocent mistake?

     Oh no, not when it comes to the Brandens, for heaven's sake. No, it must be a sign of Barbara Branden's general dishonesty: "Dishonesty is apparent not merely from the Brandens' general approach," writes Valliant, "but from countless smaller ones. As a case in point, we are treated to an unnecessary fabrication concerning how Rand chose her name. While it is a minor point, it is an ominous foreshadowing of the dishonesty of the Brandens' main theses." I would say that this passage itself constitutes an ominous foreshadowing, of the prosecutorial nitpicking that is the hallmark of this obtuse book. Another cardinal feature of the book is its scrupulous omission of any consideration of Rand's own culpability in the events Valliant discusses. Nor could the book have been written without Valliant's expert ability to credit the Brandens' testimony only when it is self-incriminating or favorable to Rand. Even the idea that Rand's husband might have suffered badly over the affair is dismissed as implausible.

     Yes, the Brandens lied to Ayn Rand about Nathaniel's love life. According to their eventual accounts, Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand had a somewhat tumultuous affair, starting when Nathaniel was in his early twenties, and with the knowledge and consent of their spouses. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, the sexual part of their relationship faded. Several years later, when Rand wished to resume, Nathaniel was reluctant to admit he was no longer interested. He feared her wrath and apparently also feared losing his spot as co-leader of the Objectivist movement. So he lied about the state of his feelings for her. He also lied about his feelings for another woman (not Barbara, another other woman). All this dragged on for years. Barbara did not know the full truth all along but did learn it eventually and helped hide it from Rand before finally letting the cat out of the bag.

     And what do we learn from Valliant's book? The exact same thing. There are nits for Valliant to pick, yes. Damning inferences aplenty to be drawn. But in outline it's the same tale. The Brandens tell a story, one which doesn't exactly exculpate themselves, which is exactly the same story evidenced by Rand's notes. It is the same story previewed at length, elaborated at length, and summarized at length by Valliant, who wants to make sure the reader gets it.

     As Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden dragged themselves through the last months of their disintegrating relationship, Ayn couldn't figure Nathaniel out. The reason? One, he was lying to her, that's the most obvious point. But Rand also seemed to do what many people do in such circumstances. She failed to confront the fact that even if someone doesn't have the guts to tell you to your face that it's over, that doesn't mean it's not over. Still, at times in her notes Rand says it seems Branden wants her to end it, which is pretty close to admitting that the thing is already dead. At other times she comes up with complex psychological theories to explain Branden's seemingly malevolent deficits of character, as manifested by his "sex problem" or his inexplicable friendliness toward a younger woman.

     Valliant, needless to say, doesn't exactly exculpate the Brandens either. Nor does he ever give them the benefit of the doubt when it might make sense to do so. Rand, of course, is always tendered the benefit of the doubt. And Valliant is always there to pound his case home, even during the part of the book where Ayn Rand is supposedly allowed finally to speak for herself, the part that transcribes her private notes. In this part of the book, delicately entitled "Documenting the Rape of Innocence," we have Valliant valiantly interrupting Rand again and again, without end, amen, to explain an issue at greater length, put it in context, tell Rand she's so right.

     What happened between Ayn and Nathaniel from 1954-1968? Who is responsible for what failings and to what extent? I have my ideas, but I don't really know the whole story for sure. I don't think there's any way I can. I don't think Valliant can either. But he's smart enough to know that this is not all the fault of one party, however much he may have focused his mind on the task of letting Rand utterly off the hook. In any case, this is the stuff of private lives, and in various forms the pattern has played itself out many times over. It's personal stuff, nobody else's business but your own and perhaps a few intimates in whom you choose to confide, which doesn't mean you can't see it on trash shows like "Jerry Springer" and "Cheaters." But because in this case the mess is tangled up with Rand's novelistic and philosophical achievement and the movement that she and Branden created, and because they were both so important to so many people, and because Rand got the ball rolling with her vindictive attack on the Brandens in The Objectivist, their relationship has become the stuff of countless briefs and affidavits and charges and counter-charges in the court of public opinion.

     It's a federal case, now. If you want a final verdict, Valliant's screed provides one.