基本信息出版社：Da Capo Press
页码：304 页
出版日期：2008年12月
ISBN：0306817535
条形码：9780306817533
装帧：平装
正文语种：英语

内容简介 在线阅读本书

Written by a friend and confidante of Iris Chang, this breathtaking book reveals the private woman behind the international celebrity. Iris Chang's mysterious suicide in 2004, at the age of thirty-six didn't seem to make any sense. She had more to live for than most - fame and fortune, beauty, a husband and child. Some even wondered if the controversial author of "The Rape of Nanking" had been murdered.Long-time friend Paula Kamen, whom Iris had called just days before her death, was among those left wondering what had gone so wrong. Seeking to reconcile the suicide with the image of Iris' seemingly 'perfect life', Kamen searched her own memory and scoured Chang's letters, diaries and archival material to fill in the gaps of Chang's transformation - from awkward teen to homecoming princess at college, from 'ex-shy person' to world-class speaker and international human rights pioneer - and later decline into mental illness and paranoia. A literary investigation of an important writer's journey, "Finding Iris" is a tribute to a lost heroine, a portrait of the real and vulnerable woman who inspired so many around the world.
作者简介 Paula Kamen is the author of All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache. She lives in Chicago.
媒体推荐 "Finding Iris Chang peels back the layers of a 'perfect' life to trace what led to Chang's carefully plotted suicide... (Paula Kamen) approaches her very interesting subject with clarity, respect and an absence of melodrama." Irish Times"
编辑推荐 From 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 exposé 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. (Nov. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"Finding Iris Chang peels back the layers of a 'perfect' life to trace what led to Chang's carefully plotted suicide... (Paula Kamen) approaches her very interesting subject with clarity, respect and an absence of melodrama." Irish Times"

Review
American Author’s Association website
“A brilliant effort and one that grabs the reader's heart and mind…Intimate and reflective…A page turner…Holds you emotionally hostage long after you stop reading it…A powerful and serious book.”

Entertainment Weekly, 12/19/08
"[A] moving bio.” --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.