Lois Cook Character Analysis in The Fountainhead

Lois Cook is the author of the novels Clouds and Shrouds and The Gallant Gallstone. Her writing is incomprehensible nonsense, but Toohey gets his lackeys to write excellent reviews of her work and she is therefore regarded as a major new talent. Toohey makes her the chair of the Council of American Writers, a group of young writers that he creates. Cook is grateful to Toohey for her success but is also aware that he is using her to further his aim of glorifying mediocrity—she knows that her work has no real merit, and she has no respect for Toohey. In this regard, she is unlike Peter Keating, who is unaware—or willfully ignorant—of the fact that Toohey is promoting his work only because he knows that Keating has no talent.

Lois Cook Character Timeline in The Fountainhead

The timeline below shows where the character Lois Cook appears in The Fountainhead. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...an organization of young architects, and he also tells Keating that the brilliant author Lois Cook is looking for an architect and that he suggested Keating. Keating is very grateful. Right... (full context)

Keating tries to read Lois Cook’s book, which is supposed to be a record of her travels around the world, but... (full context)

...rising mass of rock crystal” with its straight lines and clean angles. Keating looks at Cook’s book, and feels like it is his defense against Roark. (full context)

Later, when Keating meets his client Lois Cook, he feels uncomfortable in her presence. She looks offensively unkempt and says startling things like,... (full context)

Cook tells Keating that Toohey is organizing a youth group for writers and that she will... (full context)

Cook makes bizarre demands about the house she wants Keating to design for her, saying she... (full context)

...the Council of American Writers, which he had organized, and which was chaired by Lois Cook. The Council had “signed a declaration which stated that writers were servants of the proletariat.”... (full context)

...to Alvah Scarret and told him he didn’t like that the Banner was plugging Lois Cook’s vapid novel, The Gallant Gallstone, and he wanted to know who was behind it. Scarret... (full context)

...reads his play aloud to the Council of American Writers and his listeners—who include Lois Cook, Lancelot Clokey, and Toohey—agree that it is awful. Jules Fougler, the drama critic at the... (full context)

...Toohey that it is remarkable how he always picks the next big talents, like Lois Cook and Gordon Prescott. He recalls how the Council of American Builders used to be laughed... (full context)