A landmark biography shows the storied conservative leader walking intellectual, journalistic, and financial tightropes.

The character, Howard Roark, is an architect and builder who thinks independently in a world of “second-handers,” people who decide what they think based on what other people think.

In April 2016, Trump told a USA Today reporter that he was a fan of author Ayn Rand and identified with the hero of her 1943 novel, “The Fountainhead.” The character, Howard Roark, is an architect and ...