At the time of her death, she had been taking the medications Depakote and Risperdal to stabilize her mood.[19]. Iris Chang always outdid Paula Kamen. It happens every day of the week, and people just don't know it because people don't talk about it.". She preferred to meet someone in each town who could introduce her to the veterans and their families. Normally, Iris never did interviews alone. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "Iris was a phenomenon," said one of her former teachers at Johns Hopkins, Ann Finkbeiner. She would just laugh.". Box. Winning that prize led to dreams of becoming a writer, her father said. Whoops! "Iris wanted to talk, and I said, 'You should go to bed, it's 2 in the morning.' "But I woke up at 2 a.m. and she was pacing the hallway," Brett said. Soon she exceeded the dreams of every student in the program by getting a book contract from a major publisher while still in school. Just what had happened to Chang was a mystery. @TheJohnRylands. "Iris was much in demand and gave many talks," Brett recalled, adding with a laugh, "she was schmoozing the whole time." "There are a fair number of people who don't take kindly to what she wrote in 'The Rape of Nanking,' " Brett said, "so she's always been very, very private about our family life. -- Did she suffer a fatal reaction to powerful drugs that she refused to take as prescribed? "Iris was impatient. Culliton was sufficiently impressed by Iris' talent to recommend her to Susan Rabiner, editorial director of Basic Books, the "serious nonfiction" division of HarperCollins Publishers. I will stop by to visit my parents then go for a long walk. She was mad. We called him every day, sometimes two or three times a day. But Kamens book, unlike, say, Truth & Beauty, novelist Ann Patchetts controversial memoir of her thorny friendship with the late writer Lucy Grealy, relies very little upon navel-gazing rumination. After dinner Monday night, Iris returned a call to her agent. Instead it offers the same meticulous attention to detail and thorough immersion in primary sources that distinguishes Changs exhaustively researched books, Thread of the Silkworm (1995), about an accused Chinese spy; The Rape of Nanking, published in 1997 to mark the massacres 60th anniversary; and the 2003 narrative history The Chinese in America. The views expressed here are the author's own. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Doctors at Norton Hospital had diagnosed "brief reactive psychosis," her father said. ", Rabiner, who later became an agent and represented Iris, said, "The book was beyond well reviewed -- it was a mega-best-seller that continues to sell. "They had a big fight," he said. In the picture, Iris was standing, her head bowed in prayer like a saint or an angel. It was obvious she wasn't the same person that she was before," he said. "When I was obsessed about Iris, my husband and my son suggested taking me to see a therapist, but I said no," said Chang. Iris called to say she had found Tsien's son and had interviewed him in Mandarin. "I knew writing would be more helpful to me than medicine.". So you see, she was really a fighter. Families, too, have trouble coping. Iris Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey, daughter of immigrant parents, Professors Shau-Jin() and Ying-Ying() Chang and grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois in 1989. It may be true that Iris Chang committed suicide. $ 4.69 - $ 6.59. In her book, Kamen recalls how Chang approached an editor on one of her first days at the U. of I.s Daily Illini and asked simplywithout small talk or polite conversationHow do I get your job? The medicine made her feel sluggish. [2] The independent 2007 documentary film Nanking was based on her work and dedicated to her memory. Comedy writer who worked on Maureen Lipman's Agony, The Lenny Henry Show, Ed Reardon's Week and Dave Podmore. She was also promoting The Chinese in America. She knew where to find the glass case of Civil War era pistol replicas, classified as "relics." Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT. But for us to be able to write nonfiction, the stories of our lives -- on a lot of levels, it was revolutionary. Such "black powder" firearms, popular with Civil War re-enactors, require skill to load and fire. So was her car. Chang also lectures frequently before business, university and other groups interested in human rights, World War II history, Cold War history, the Asian American experience, Sino-American relations, and the future of American civil liberties. John Rylands Research Institute and Library. ", Rabiner became worried, too. " Iris was sometimes teased for her earnestness. Beautiful as always, she was dressed in an indigo blue suit, identical in color and hue to the dress in the photograph. "But gradually, she became very depressed," said her father, adding that her doctor in California prescribed an additional medication, an antidepressant. Photos for a profile of Iris chang, a prominent author and historian, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The lack of sleep can exacerbate the illness and vice versa. It was unusual for Basic Books to consider such an untested writer. In her international bestseller, "The Rape of Nanking," Chang examined one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the mass execution of soldiers and theslaughter, rape and torture oftens of tens of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China. The official cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot. THEY ARE AT THE CHINESE AMERICAN MENTAL HEALTH NETWORK SCHOLARSHIP FUNDRAISER / CULTURE TO CULTURE FOUNDATION. She committed suicide on November 9, 2004. The Committee of 100 is a national non-partisan organization composed of American citizens of Chinese descent who have achieved positions of leadership in the United States in a broad range of professions. There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Upon his return to China, Tsien developed the Dongfeng missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which was used by the Iraqi military during its war on Iran and against the United States-led coalitions during the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "She got what she wanted and got out," he said. The manager knew her as a customer and an author -- Iris and Brett ate there often. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Chang answered the door of their quiet, two-story townhouse in San Jose. Chang said she usually gives three reasons for her unconventional decision to write her daughter's biography: to commemorate Iris, to tell Iris' son Christopher Douglas all about the mother he lost at age 2, and to set the record straight about Iris' suicide amid media speculations. Services; Expertise; Our Clients; Book Deep Cleaning . At 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, a county water district employee drove past the Oldsmobile. I will follow the doctor's orders for medications. Birth announcement for Christopher Joseph Chang Douglas 2002. box 174, folder 2-6. This was not her first visit. Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I don't know how many printings it went through. Chang has written for numerous publications, such as the New York Times, Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, and has been featured by countless radio, television and print media, including Nightline, the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose, Good Morning America, C-Span's Booknotes, and the front cover of Reader's Digest. Dive into our most recent stories and exclusive insights from our editors and staff. Among her many television appearances was a memorable evening on "Nightline," where she was the only Asian and the only woman among a panel of China experts. By now, Brett had taken a job with a Santa Barbara engineering firm. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Now, the family rushed to learn everything they could about her illness. He stopped and honked but there was no response. Here are some photos of Iris's son Christopher enjoying his spring break in Florida +10 3535 4 comments Share "We set out a very big lunch -- meat trays and sandwiches and desserts," she said. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born on March 28, 1968, in Princeton, N.J. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where her father, a physicist, and her mother, a microbiologist, taught at the University . "Though I had heard so much about the Nanking massacre as a child, nothing prepared me for these pictures -- stark black-and-white images of decapitated heads, bellies ripped open and nude women forced by their rapists into various pornographic poses, their faces contorted into unforgettable expressions of agony and shame. He left China in 1935 to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Christopher Douglas is known for The Onedin Line (1971), Early Travellers in North America (1992) and Crown Court (1972). On August 31, 2002, Christopher Douglas, their son, was born. After the interview, they kept up an active correspondence. ". ", Their son, who had turned 2 years old in August, became aware of a change. Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle. Hundreds gathered for the memorial service and burial. Rabiner sensed the book would be important and signed Iris to write it. We don't work that way," Rabiner insisted. Blood covered her clothes. Sluggishness is a common side effect of Depakote, because it subdues the manic phase of bipolar disorder by depressing the central nervous system. "It's amazing when you watch Iris do research," Brett said. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (Hanzi tradisional: . Is the Stanley Quencher tumbler worth its TikTok hype? She harbored hundreds of Chinese women and children there during the occupation. "Iris wasn't prepared and her publisher wasn't prepared. Editor's note: An earlier version of this article had the incorrect location for Ying-Ying Chang's book signing. "Christopher sensed that something was going wrong with Iris," Brett said. I will follow the doctor's orders for medications. Rumors swirled in the early days after her suicide. Please forgive me. When her body was discovered, Iris Chang had been dead for two hours. Somehow, she always bounced back, energized by her role as spokesperson for a movement. This is a carousel. "Iris used to say she never understood why people would commit suicide, so she was definitely not a suicidal type," said Chang. And that really took its toll on her, too.". They lived on a leafy country road named Einstein Drive. Ying-Ying is a biochemist. . The foyer was filled with enormous bouquets sent by well-wishers. "The doctors wanted her to continue in therapy, so sometimes they would go along with her. She said she had never thought she would write a book unrelated to science, and in English, her second language, but she did. Iris pushed herself "to be the best possible mother and the best possible writer," Brett said. Memorial service at Gate of Heaven Cemetary for IRIS CHANG Soon she managed to call her mother. But it turned out she wasn't sleeping during the day either. A reassuring presence, he stood at the kitchen counter, fixing a sandwich for lunch. On Saturday night they went to dinner at Fresh Choice and out to the movies. "She was very tired," her mother said. It was the first history of Japan's brutal 1937 occupation of China's capital city and documented the weekslong rampage. ". That such a beautiful woman would be remembered is not unusual. She wound up committing suicide after finishing her book about the Rape of Nanking. At Johns Hopkins, Iris studied playwriting, fiction, poetry and science writing. Hoping to practice shooting, she asked the gunsmith to go with her to a nearby indoor firing range. "For three days they gave her medication, the first time in her life." Chang, 36 . Their families fled the 1949 Communist revolution and settled in Taiwan, where the two met in high school. An excerpt from an interview with author Iris Chang held during her appearance at the New York State Writers Institute on April 14, 2004. It has a terrible reverberating effect. It was very painful for me to think about, even then. Tsien left for the People's Republic of China in September 1955. Though her work life was not without controversy, she seemed to be a very successful woman, driven by the need to share the dark corners of history with the world. She went to the Chicago Tribune instead, but didn't enjoy "politicking for assignments," Brett said. . Iris Chang (), before her untimely death, was one of America's leading young historians. We arranged for her to come down and stay with me soon," she said. The fundamental question about suicide, as Howard I. Kushner wrote in "Self-Destruction in the Promised Land," is this: "Why, when faced with a similar set of circumstances -- whether cultural, psychological or biological -- does one person commit suicide while another does not? Now, it becomes our treasure. She added one more reason when talking to Patchto help those who lost loved ones like herself heal. Overwhelming response to the piece convinced Kamen to expand her meditation on Changs phenomenal life and her shocking death. As she later told an interviewer, "I wrote 'Rape of Nanking' out of a sense of rage. "She's very strong- willed," her mother said. I was not alone in eating Iris dust, Kamen noted ruefully in an essay she wrote for Salon shortly after Changs death. I didn't really care if I made a cent from it. Along with fear for her safety, Iris' illness generated feelings of self- blame. Brett set up a home gym in the basement and coached her through hourlong workouts with hand weights. News of her suicide brought forth a chorus of disbelief. Copy photo of Iris Chang with her husband Brett Douglas and their son at his birthday party. "He made breakfast for me," she said. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born March 28, 1968, in Princeton Hospital, on the university campus in New Jersey where her parents were doing postdoctoral work. LOS ALTOS, CA - NOVEMBER 19: (L-R) Brett Douglas, husband of Iris Chang, walks behind a hearse carrying her body with her brother Michael Chang, mother Ying-Ying Chang and father Shau-Jin Chang during funeral services November 19, 2004 at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos, California. But today Christopher is healthy. "I learned from my research that medicine is not one for all," said Chang. From the terrace, the view was peaceful -- broad green fields and golden poplars. [20], On November 9, 2004, at about 9 a.m., Chang was found dead in the driver's seat of her Oldsmobile Alero car by a Santa Clara Valley Water District employee on a rural road south of Los Gatos, California and west of State Route 17, in Santa Clara County. Iris Chang wrote those lines in 1978, when she was 10, and 19 years before her harrowing book, The Rape of Nanking, brought her worldwide acclaim. She asked me if I was religious -- I said I wasn't, not at all. This could be a one-time event or it could signal the onset of bipolar disorder, the doctors told them. "Iris was so excited when she got the contract for the book," Brett said, recalling how obsessively she ferreted out material. This is for the biographers., Suicide, Kamen observes, is in a lot of ways the ultimate act of control. Chasing the shadows. "During the massacre some had received physical injuries so severe they had been prevented from making a decent living for decades. (In the book, Iris noted that Vautrin had graduated with honors from her own alma mater, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.) It's a shame these atrocities had to be happened in the hands of Japanese. Haunted by the belief that she had failed, Vautrin suffered a breakdown in 1940. "But the side effect of psychiatric drugs changed her personality and prompted her to go that route.". She got very, very wound up in things," Finkbeiner said. Months earlier, Iris had seized on a letter in her "book ideas" file about a Midwestern pocket of Bataan survivors, all members of two tank battalions. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History.Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography Finding Iris Chang, and the 2007 documentary film Iris . "Over a year and a half, she visited 65 cities," Brett said. Anthony Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired Iris' work. After brief stints at the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune, she pursued a master's degree in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. In one often-mentioned incident (as reported by The Times of London): she confronted the Japanese Ambassador to the United States on television, demanded an apology and expressed her dissatisfaction with his mere acknowledgement "that really unfortunate things happened, acts of violence were committed by members of the Japanese military". ", Iris connected so well with these veterans because each of their stories mattered to her. ", Rabiner said Iris "found her voice" in promoting "Rape of Nanking." What made it much easier is that we did have a wonderful nanny to help. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. Chang's son, Christopher (born with the help of a surrogate mother), has been diagnosed as autistic specifically Asperger's disorder, a mild form. Hundreds gathered for the memorial service and burial. "She would just say, matter-of-factly, 'Japan is lying and here's why.' Questions hung in the air: -- How could someone with such success, surrounded by loving family and friends, take her own life? Christopher Douglas Retweeted. Andrew Nickolds obituary. Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. But all of them wanted the opportunity to talk about the massacre before their deaths. People tend to think that clinical depression is like a bad-hair day. "The stress of writing this book and living with this horror on a daily basis caused my weight to plummet," she said. Chang, with a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard University, had a scientist's career until her retirement in 2002. The sound of children singing wafted in from the swimming pool nearby. She wanted to be independent, to think for herself. That book would sell half a million copies. ", During two years of research, Iris made significant historical discoveries. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was a Chinese-American historian and journalist. After the release from the hospital, she continued to suffer from depression and experienced the side effects of several medications she was taking. [13], Chang's visibility as a public figure increased with her final work, The Chinese in America. What happened to Iris Chang's son? Asians were the first immigrant community that 'made it,' and we should all be doctors and lawyers." They made an appointment to meet Wednesday at the firing range. Chang will continue her book-signing tour after Saturday's event in Cupertino. Chang said she usually gives three reasons for her unconventional decision to write her daughter's biography: to commemorate Iris, to tell Iris' son, Christopher Douglas, all about the mother he lost at age 2, and to set the record straight about Iris' suicide amid media speculations. "I thought it would be inspirational. Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT, iris chang and bataan march survivor ed martel and his wife courtesy ed martel, THIS IS A HANDOUT IMAGE. She was too strong-willed not to.". ", Between trips to the Midwest, Iris conducted yet another book tour. ", The Gate of Heaven was well named. When the American general surrendered on April 9, the Japanese forced the troops to walk 65 miles through sweltering jungle. (Another of Changs unfinished projects was a book on defeating the biological clock.) She wrote her thesis on "The Poetry of Science." "It's a double-edged sword. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me. It explores the story of Iris Chang, who killed herself . She committed suicide on November 9, 2004. The first was short, titled "Statement of Iris Chang." Her last, widely-acclaimed book focused on Chinese immigrants and t heir descendents in the United States their sacrifices, their achievements and their contributions to the fabric of American culture, an epic journey spanning more than 150 years. This post was contributed by a community member. Stories about Chang's grandparents' harrowing escape were part of her family legacy and prompted her to embark on this ambitious project, for which she interviewed elderly survivors of the massacre and discovered thousands of rare documents in four different languages. Iris Chang is best known for two things: writing the explosive bestseller "The Rape of Nanking," and then killing herself. He immediately called the police. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 - November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist.She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Other parts were not. Nearby, Bear Creek Road curled up the lonesome hills, thick with black oak. We . The most startling thing Kamen uncovered about Chang, however, didnt emerge until after Finding Iris Chang was set in galleys. The group meets to address important issues concerning the Chinese-American community, as well as issues affecting U.S.-China relations on 5/5/03 in New York. Brett said Iris was anxious to get back to work. "This was something of a roots venture for her -- to reconnect with the country that her family had drifted off from," said UC Berkeley's Schell. "It's been too short.". That essay, How Iris Chang Became a Verb, serves as a graceful and insightful eulogy for the best-selling author, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on a lonely stretch of road outside San Jose, California, in November 2004. Those who survived spent the rest of the war in a bleak prison camp; some were shipped to Japan as slave laborers. Iris Chang. 1968 - 2004 . Born in China, educated at M.I.T. This put her under enormous stress. For reviews of the book, visit irischang.net/news/index.php. Event on 11/19/04 in Los Altos Hills Eric Luse / The Chronicle Ran on: 11-20-2004 She passed the iron gates of Calvary Catholic Cemetery, where marble statues of winged angels, their heads bowed in prayer . "She should not have gone.". She had suffered from years of depression and constant sleep deprivation since her bestseller - full title The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War Two - was published in 1997. 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