Onoto Watanna: THE STORY OF WINNIFRED EATON (Asian American Experience) [Hardcover]

Diana Birchall (Author)

Book Description

Series: Asian American Experience | Publication Date: July 25, 2001

In 1901, the young Winnifred Eaton arrived in New York City with literary ambitions, journalistic experience, and the manuscript for "A Japanese Nightingale", the novel that would sell many thousands of copies and make her famous. Hers is a real Horatio Alger story, with fascinating added dimensions of race and gender. While commercially successful women writers were uncommon a century ago, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) cultivated a particular persona to set herself apart even within this rare breed. Born to a British father and a Chinese mother, Winnifred decided to capitalize on her exotic appearance while protecting herself from Americans' scorn of Chinese: she "became" Japanese, assuming the pen name Onoto Watanna. While her eldest sister, Edith Maude Eaton (now acknowledged as the mother of Asian American fiction), was writing stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred's Japanese romance novels and stories became all the rage, thrusting her into the glittering world of New York literati. Diana Birchall chronicles the sometimes desperate, sometimes canny, always bold life of her "bad grandmother," about whom she knew almost nothing until her own adulthood. Here are the details of an amazing professional career as a journalist, a bestselling novelist, and a Hollywood scriptwriting protge of Carl Laemmle at Universal Studios. Here, too, is the personal saga of a woman who bore "a book and a baby a year" during her troubled first marriage - and who, at the age of fifty-six, wooed back her estranged second husband when her Hollywood career hit the skids during the Great Depression. Having achieved early fame as a Japanese romance writer, Winnifred later jettisoned the kimono and wrote books (including one entitled Cattle) set on the plains of Alberta, where her husband owned a ranch. A chameleon? A desperate poseur? A shrewd businesswoman? She was all that, and much more, as Diana Birchall demonstrates. Navigating the shifting boundary between life and art, Birchall probes Winnifred's conflicting stories, personal tempests, and remarkable accomplishments, presenting a woman whose career was "sensational" in every sense.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Birchall tells the story of her colorful half-caste "bad grandma," Winnifred Eaton (1875-1952), who used the pen name Onoto Watanna as part of her ongoing charade as half-Japanese. Born in Montreal, the eighth of 14 children of an English artist father and a Chinese mother, Eaton authored 17 novels (including A Japanese Nightingale, The Heart of Hyacinth, and Miss Num of Japan) and numerous short stories, mostly with Japanese characters and themes. Acknowledged by scholars as a pioneer Asian American writer and as possibly the first Asian American novelist, Eaton was rediscovered as a writer in the 1970s. Birchall, a story analyst at Warner Brothers and author of two historical novels, portrays a curiously fascinating and remarkably bold woman, best-selling novelist, and Hollywood scriptwriter who lived a life as intermingled with fact and fantasy, reality and fiction, as her novels and short stories. Because Birchall was three when she last saw her grandmother, her portrait has a sense of detachment that the reader can feel but will not find distracting. Recommended for both academic and public libraries. Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Birchall's engaging biography of her grandmother will appeal to a broad range of readers: scholars of Asian American literature, students of literary life in New York City, feminist historians exploring the careers of literary women, cinema historians concerned with the medium's early development in Hollywood, critics of Canadian literature, and teachers and practitioners of family history... Birchall was a novice biographer when she began work on this study; but in the process of writing it she transformed herself into a scholar." -- Choice "[Birchall] portrays a curiously fascinating and remarkably bold woman, best-selling novelist, and Hollywood scriptwriter who lived a life as intermingled with fact and fantasy, reality and fiction, as her novels and short stories." -- Library Journal "A scholarly work as well as a delight to read." -- Ginny Lee, Multicultural Review "Birchall, a novelist and Warner Brothers story analyst, reports the life of her 'bad grandmother' in straightforward and heartfelt prose, offering both a fascinating life story and a social history of fin de siecle literary life in New York." -- The Globe and Mail ADVANCE PRAISE "This finely crafted, meticulously researched, and very witty biography of Onoto Watanna/Winnifred Eaton makes the fascinating novelist come alive in all her human contradictions. Birchall's prose reflects her grandmother's gift for spellbinding narrative, mirroring the disarming charm, grace, energy, and vigor of Watanna--as woman and writer--herself. Poignant and moving, but always alive to humor, Birchall's riveting biography is a timely gift to students of Asian American literature, filling a century-long void in Eaton scholarship." -- Samina Najmi, Wheaton College "Immensely enjoyable reading... Eaton is a fascinating woman, both in her personal and professional choices and in the many lives she led and the many worlds she inhabited. This is a story that must be told, and Birchall is the ideal person for the job. She tells Eaton's story with affection, energy, and sensitivity to her subject's unique voice and personality." -- Eve Oishi, California State University at Long Beach

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (July 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252026071
• ISBN-13: 978-0252026072
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,005,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Shared Joy, January 17, 2002

By 

Diane Allen (Haughton, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Onoto Watanna: THE STORY OF WINNIFRED EATON (Asian American Experience) (Hardcover)

I didn't mean to like Winnifred Eaton. After all, she was a bit of a fanfaronade and very much of a poseur, not at all the sort I wanted in my circle of intimates.

But Diana Birchall's sparkling biography changed my mind. Writing with unblinking honesty, Birchall describes the many lives that her chameleon grandmother lived, from journalist and novelist to story editor and screenwriter. Of most interest to me were the stories of her career as wife in two unconventional marriages and mother to four children. Birchall's graceful use of language is enhanced by her wit and intelligently ironic style. She concludes this delightful biography with the acknowledgment that sharing what she has learned about her grandmother has been a privilege and a joy. Surely it is no less a privilege and a joy for the reader.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting history, September 25, 2001

By 

D. Cusick "scalloway" (Fleming Island, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Onoto Watanna: THE STORY OF WINNIFRED EATON (Asian American Experience) (Hardcover)

In my library I have dozens of books inherited from my parents and my grandparents. We have been readers for several generations, and I grew up with many of these books. One of these books was a novel called "The Heart of Hyacinth" by an author mysteriously named Onoto Watanna. The author was unknown to me, but I thought the book was one of the most beautiful of all the books I'd inherited, with lovely Japanese-style illustrations and drawings.

But now I've had a chance to learn about the woman who lurked behind that exotic nom de plume. I learn she was not Japanese at all, but half Chinese and half English. Yet her true story seems to be as fully exotic as any of the character's lives from her books.

Diana Birchall has done a wonderful job of bringing her fascinating grandmother to life. The book give a wonderful look at a most unusual woman, and what life was like for young women at the turn of the last century. At least what life was like when the young women were as self-confident and gutsy as the young Winnifred Eaton.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force of self-invention, October 25, 2001

By 

Mary Ann Dimand (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Onoto Watanna: THE STORY OF WINNIFRED EATON (Asian American Experience) (Hardcover)

Birchall's fascinating and beautifully written account of her grandmother's life is an important work for scholars in women's studies, Asian-American or American studies, Canlit, and the movie industry, and for the general reader seeking a compelling biography.

Other reviewers have mentioned Eaton/Watanna's background. I will stress instead the absorbing interest of Winnifred's successive reinventions of herself in societies that had no ready place for her. Like a brilliant slackrope walker with an increasingly awkward load, Winnifred managed to shift her balance not only to survive, but pulled off one tour de force after another. Her performances as a Japanese-American novelist, as a screenwriter and as a rancher doyenne would win applause from Daniel Defoe.

Eaton/Watanna has become a focal interest of American scholars in recent years. As her granddaughter, Birchall had informaitonal advantages in writing on her. Her graceful, well-considered book shows how glad we should be for Birchall's advantages.