The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond The Rape of Nanking

Why did the brave, brilliant author of The Rape of Nanking, a groundbreaking study of Japan's brutal occupation of the city, commit suicide in 2004, at age 36? Her mother, Ying-Ying Chang, a Harvard-trained biochemist, wants to give an accounting of her daughter's life and the events leading up to her death. But this plodding chronicle is weighted with such details as why her daughter was named "Iris" and Iris's participation in a homecoming parade. Still, Iris's perseverance in pursuing goals, including writing her book, comes through. Despite providing ample evidence that Iris was in serious mental distress%E2%80%94e-mails cited here; her fear that her son was autistic (though he was too young to be diagnosed); her hair falling out "in clumps in the shower" when writing about Nanking%E2%80%94Ying-Ying gives some credence to a possible conspiracy, perhaps by Japanese right-wing extremists. (Iris reported being threatened during her book tour.) But primarily she blames the psychotropic medications Iris was taking for her depression. Moving as Ying-Ying's account is, this still mystifying tale calls for a journalistic account that would be more definitive and less defensive. 24 pages of b&w photos. (May)