Books: Dubious History

THE CRIPPLED TREE by Han Suyin. 461 pages. Putnam. $5.95.

Han Suyin made a literary reputation of sorts by telling, in A Many-Splendored Thing, all the revealing intimate details of her carryings-on in Hong Kong with a married British foreign correspondent who got killed in the Korean War. Several autobiographical exposés later, Eurasian Suyin, now 48, tells again of herself, this time as a child, and of the declining fortunes of her father's Mandarin family at a time of chaos, civil war and foreign depredation in China. "The characters in this book," says the...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!