Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind
Dec 2007 · Hachette+ORM
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306
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About this ebook
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
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
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 liv...
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About the author
Paula Kamen is the author of All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache. Her commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, among other publications. She lives in Chicago.
Paula Kamen is the author of All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache. Her commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, among other publications. She lives in Chicago.
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