Marion: The Story of an Artist's Model

by Winnifred Eaton, Karen E.H. Skinazi (Introduction), Henry Hutt (Illustrator)

The daughter of an English merchant father and Chinese mother, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) was a wildly popular fiction writer in her time. Born in Montreal, Eaton lived in Jamaica and several places in the United States before settling in Alberta. Her books, many of them published under the Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna, encompass the experiences of marginalized women in Canada, Jamaica, the United States, and a romantic, imagined Japan. The Story of an Artist's Model is Eaton's only book that explicitly deals with being "foreign" in Canada. The novel follows the life of "half-foreign" Marion Ascough - a character based on Eaton's own sister - while never identifying her "foreignness." Escaping the unrelenting racial discrimination her family endures in Quebec, Marion follows her dream of being an artist by moving to New York, where she becomes "Canadian" instead of ethnic - a more palatable foreignness. Having successfully stripped herself of her ethnicity, Marion continues to experience discrimination and objectification as a woman, failing as an artist and becoming an artist's model. Karen Skinazi's introduction to Eaton's fascinating narrative draws attention to the fact that although the novel uses many of the conventions of the "race secret" story, this time the secret is never revealed. This new edition of The Story of An Artist's Model brings back into print a compelling and sophisticated treasure of Asian Canadian/American fiction that offers a rare perspective on ethnicity, gender, and identity.

Genres: American

410 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

Winnifred Eaton is the real name for Onoto Watanna.

Reviews

[Camelia Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1916, Marion: The Story of an Artist Model, was written by two Eurasian sisters, Onoto Watanna and Sarah Bosse. Onoto Watanna was the pen name for Winifred Eaton, a prolific English-Chinese writer who claimed to be Japanese and wrote many popular Japanese romances. The book is a semi-biography of Sarah Bosse, born Sarah Eaton in a Canadian mixed race family, her coming of age, her struggling to make a living independently and becoming an artist. The protagonist's race was not told openly, but readers today can read between the lines and feel the pain of her racial passing and identity seeking.

The writing is smooth but somewhat dated. A lot are left unsaid so the characters are not fully developed. However, putting it into historical context, the book is a worthy read from both race and gender point of view. It also contains fascinating depiction of the art scene in Montreal, Boston and New York in the first decade of 20th century.

Several Eaton sisters were truly amazing and inspiring. The eldest Eaton girl, Edith, openly admitted her Chinese origin at the hight of Sinophobia. She was the first Asian American writer who shed light upon ordinary Chinese American, depicted them as human. Today she was considered as the God Mother of Asian American literature. Another Eaton sister, Grace, when widowed, raised her young son and studied law. She was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1912 at the age of forty-five. Today she was remembered as an activist in women's rights and one of the first published female lawyers in US.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book completely by chance browsing at my public library, and took it home because its heroine is a biracial woman, like the characters in the novels by Nella Larsen I recently discovered and loved. Although "Marion" isn't at all in the same league as "Passing" and "Quicksand", it is an enjoyable and instructive read. Marion is the daughter of a member of the British minor aristocracy who has emigrated to Canada in order to live openly with his "foreign" wife. Of what nationality or race the wife is, nothing is ever revealed. Ascough and his wife have managed to produce an impressive 11 children, a fact which doesn't seem to endear them to their Catholic neighbors, whom they in turn despise (they live in a French-speaking part of Montréal called Hochelaga). Ascough is a painter who struggles to make ends meet but is equally devoted to his art and to his large brood. Those of his children who marry are expected to continue to send money home for their younger siblings. Marion is a very pretty girl who has inherited her father's talent and would love to establish herself as an artist. However, she falls in love with a young man from the same background as her father, but without his high principles. Reggie Bertie is a selfish snob who can't bring himself to marry Marion against the wishes of his parents. Their long and pointless engagement robs Marion of some of the best years of her life. Eventually Marion admits to herself that Reggie has only proposed to her in order to prevent her from belonging to somebody else, and she moves to Boston, and then on to New York. Both in Boston and in New York she does find ways of earning some money from painting, but lives from hand to mouth, especially during the summer months when artists leave the city for the shore or the country. Most artists treat her rather well, but inevitably some try to take advantage of her. When she runs completely out of money, Marion becomes a model, and even reluctantly accepts to pose in the nude, but hates the experience so much that she scampers out before the end of the session and falls gravely ill. After being nursed back to health by a fellow boarding-house lodger, she goes back to painting and modeling, and eventually meets Paul Bonnat, a dedicated artist who proves to be her true soulmate. Trusting in his goodness, Marion accepts to live in sin with him, only to realize that, of course, he intended to marry her all along.
In spite of its charm this lightweight romance is mostly of interest today as a historical document. Karen Skinazi's long introduction is a mint of information on Winnifred Eaton, a Chinese-Caucasian woman who had a long and successful writing career under the Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna, but covers a lot of ground besides.

[Benjamin Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part romance, part character study, part snapshot of the art scene in the early 20th century. It's breezy stuff. I went into it thinking it might be a bit more brazen than it was.