a1060: "TANTE": THE DARING DECADES. Francis Miller in Haiti

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bob Corbett

Last night I just chanced to pull a book off the shelf.  I was a bit
bored, had just finished a book and wasn't sure what I want to read
next.  I saw this old-looking strange volume and pulled it off.  Well,
it was quite a read.  Here are a few comments to share.

For well over 100 reviews of books about Haiti see:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/dogtown/history/bricks.html

For this particular review in an on-line version see:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/bookreviews/miller-tante.htm

My comments:

"TANTE": THE DARING DECADES
By Frances Miller
Sag Harbor, NY: Sandbox Press, 1981.
144 pages

Comments by Bob Corbett
March 2002

The Daring Decades is the third volume of TANTE, an autobiography of
Frances Miller. This is an astonishing book about an astonishing woman, a
model of courage, individualism, resolve and success.

Frances Miller having been a successful textile designer and mother of
three, in 1948 at around the age of 50, takes off for the country of Haiti
just to experience it. She had never been there before, knew no one, but
was attracted to the country and its new emerging art movement. In reading
of her earliest days there she reminded me of many newcomers to Haiti.
However, within just a couple of days one begins to see she is going to be
different from most other first time visitors.

First of all she is alone. Secondly, she is fluent in French and anxious
to learn Haitian Creole. Soon, in just her first days, she arranges a trip
out to the Pine Forest and rides in a huge truck. Next she is off to rural
Haiti by horseback. And on it goes. She meets and parties with the elite
of the art world, but enters deeply into Haiti culture and travels widely
in the country.

Eventually her primary guide, Arsene Marius takes her on a lengthy trip to
the Island of LaGonave and they end up falling in love. Arsene asks her to
marry him and she is in a quandary as to what a racially mixed marriage
would mean back in the U.S. in 1948. However, he is not only anxious to
marry Frances, but to study in the U.S., so she takes on the difficulties
and they go to the states, marry and begin their new life.

It isnt easy, and Arsene is accepted into a university in New Mexico where
they experience tremendous disapproval of their being a couple and of his
color. After he earns his masters degree they head to Mexico where he
plans to work on his PHD in a more friendly environment. However, on
Millers account, the racism he experienced in the U.S., and prior
tendencies Arsene had lead him to begin drinking a great deal and his
drinking was often accompanied by violence toward her. Eventually, after
about four years together (it is extremely difficult to keep track of time
in this work, she uses almost no dates), she returns to the U.S. and
divorces him. Arsene soon after returns to Haiti.

Eventually she returns to Mexico and spends some quite successful years
there and emerges as a modestly well-known painter. She comes back to the
states and finally settles in New York City becoming part of that citys
active art community in the 1980s.

Frances Miller is a simply fascinating woman. I dont know what ever moved
me to pick the book off the shelf and take a look at the first few pages,
but soon I was hooked and read the book in just two days, hardly able to
stop.

As one who has visited the country of Haiti many times and met dozens of
foreigners, especially Americans going to Haiti both to help the country
and to experience it. I wish there were many more who could open
themselves to Haiti with such vigor and excitement, accepting it on its
own terms rather than taking all the baggage of foreign expectation to the
Haitian scene.