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A colleague who knew I was a fan of Iris Chang's work asked me if I heard she was dead of an apparent suicide. In denial, I went to the Internet, confirmed it, and so settled into grief, anger, and acceptance, and whatever else the Kubler-Ross classifications are.
Iris Chang, whom I twice interviewed, left behind a husband and a small son.
A couple of years ago, I was making small talk with an editor at a big city daily (itself remarkable since he was not given to small talk) and somehow Iris Chang's name came up and I mentioned that I had interviewed her in Portland and that -- and this is the single most indelible item that I remember concerning her -- I was amazed and, indeed, intimidated by how much smarter she was than me and that this was compounded by her being younger than me. The editor said that yes, she was smarter than him too and, not just younger, but much younger.
Thinking of that conversation now, I recall a bit of dialogue from the movie Broadcast News, wherein an executive cracks wise to Holly Hunter, saying that it must be wonderful to always be the smartest person in the...