• • Nora Ephron’s genius early days 
Michelle Dean, Salon Altruism  |The Fountainhead  |Egoism  | Ephron’s first major piece for the Times made her one of the first writers to mine the comedy gold mine that is the work of Ayn Rand and its admirers. Ephron wrote of her teenagerly infatuation with “The Fountainhead,” having “skipped over all the passages about egoism and altruism” in favor of fantasizing about meeting a real-life Harold Roark, joking about the sexual opportunities that might allow. In her adult life she reformed, observing of the Rand’s disciples: “Objectivists occasionally smoke cigarettes with dollar signs on them.”   Published: 2012-06-27