It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand

{{Short description|Satirical memoir by Jerome Tuccille}}

{{Infobox book

|name = It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand

|image = File:It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand.jpg

|caption = Cover of the first edition

|author = Jerome Tuccille

|cover_artist =

|country = United States

|language = English

|subject = Libertarianism

|publisher = Stein and Day

|pub_date = 1971

|media_type = Print

|pages = 192

|isbn = 0-8128-1402-9

}}

It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand is a satirical memoir by American libertarian political activist Jerome Tuccille. It was first published by Stein and Day in 1971. The title refers to novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, whose work introduced Tuccille and other activists to libertarian ideas.{{cite news |first=William |last=Grimes |title=Jerome Tuccille, Libertarian Author and Trump Biographer, Dies at 79 |date=February 24, 2017 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/books/jerome-tuccille-dead.html |access-date=September 25, 2018 |work=The New York Times}}

In a review of the literature about Rand, literary scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein complimented Tuccille for his humor, especially in his satire of Rand's followers in the Objectivist movement. She also said that most of the book is not about Rand and instead focuses on other areas of right-wing politics.{{cite book |title=The New Ayn Rand Companion |last=Gladstein |first=Mimi Reisel |location=Westport, Connecticut |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-313-30321-5 |oclc=40359365 |page=100}} Roy Childs reviewed the book in Reason.{{cite news |title=It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand |first=Roy |last=Childs, Jr. |work=Reason |date=June–July 1972 |url=http://reason.com/archives/1972/06/01/it-usually-begins-with-ayn-ran}} Martin Morse Wooster did a retrospective on it in The American Enterprise.{{cite news |title=Con-Fusion |first=Martin Morse |last=Wooster |work=The American Enterprise |date=November 1998 |page=84}}