Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic

Consultant for CBS News in Beijing, Bette Bao Lord had left China for a visit to New York just days before the Tiananmen Square massacre. Yet her kaleidoscopic blend of reportage, oral history, reminiscence and family reunion sets the agony of China's current situation against decades of smoldering ferment for democratic change. A popular novelist ( Spring Moon ) and wife of Reagan's ambassador to China, Winston Lord, the author interweaves a chorus of Chinese voices: an actress whose father committed suicide rather than submit to the Party's will; a journalist paralyzed with fear; an aged scholar who was tortured and imprisoned for years; a doctor appalled at the bribery and ``gift''-giving rampant in Chinese medicine. Lord writes beautifully and poignantly. 150,000 first printing; BOMC alternate; author tour. (Apr.)