Finding Iris Chang
Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This account of a bestselling author's suicide is "part biography, part detective story, part memoir of a thorny but enduring friendship" (Molly Worthen, author of Apostles of Reason).
Iris Chang's mysterious suicide in 2004, at age thirty-six, didn't seem to make any sense. She had more to live for than anyone, including fame, fortune, beauty, a husband, and a child. Some even wondered if the controversial New York Times-bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking had been murdered.
Long-time friend Paula Kamen was among those left wondering what had gone so wrong. Seeking to reconcile the suicide with the image of Chang's "perfect" life, Kamen searched her own memory and scoured Chang's letters, diaries, and archival material to fill in the gaps of Chang's personal transformation—from awkward teen to homecoming princess in college, from "ex-shy person" to world-class speaker and international human rights pioneer—and her later decline into mental illness and paranoia. A literary investigation of an important writer's journey, Finding Iris Chang is a tribute to a lost heroine, a portrait of the real and vulnerable woman who inspired so many around the world.
"Probes the stigma of mental illness in the Asian-American community, Chang's sense of guilt over her son's autism, her veneer of perfection and the deterioration of her mental state." —Publishers Weekly
"A rewardingly complex portrait of a driven and troubled woman." —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestselling author Iris Chang's 2004 suicide at age 36 so shocked friends and colleagues that some initially claimed that Japanese extremists had murdered her to avenge Chang's acclaimed expos in The Rape of Nanking of atrocities against Chinese civilians perpetrated by Japanese invaders in 1937 1938. Lacking the artistry of Ann Patchett's recent portrait of her friendship with writer Lucy Grealy, this effort by Kamen (All in My Head) is a tedious, obsessive, exploitative effort, drawing on her Salon.com eulogy to Chang. Kamen, who had known Chang since college, repeats some of the far-fetched, irresponsible conspiracy theories before settling on the sad truth that Chang, suffering from bipolar disorder, shot herself in the head with an antique pistol after much planning. Kamen describes her admiration for and jealousy of her "rival," Chang's grating ambitiousness and the first-generation American's attempts at being a "real" American, epitomized by her campaign to be college homecoming queen. Kamen also probes the stigma of mental illness in the Asian-American community, Chang's sense of guilt over her son's autism, her veneer of perfection and the deterioration of her mental state. Despite its flaws, this could find a sizable audience among those Chinese-Americans who lionized Chang. 60,000 first printing.
