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The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir Paperback – 13 September 2020
by Karen Hill Anton (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 195 ratings
GRAND PRIZE Winner Memoir Magazine 2022
GOLD PRIZE Winner SPR Book Awards 2020
Book Readers Appreciation Group (B.R.A.G.) MEDALLION 2021
Crossing Borders and Cultures, Creating Home
The View From Breast Pocket Mountain is a unique and previously untold story, a treasure trove of experiences crossing borders and cultures, creating a life, and finding contentment in a far-off country.
To those who've ever wondered what their lives would be if they'd taken that road without a map, this is the book you need to read. The View From Breast Pocket Mountain gives us a glimpse of a life not designed or even imagined.
As a motherless teenager raised by a caring albeit strict father, we see Anton's developing awareness of the world beyond the boundaries of her New York City neighborhood before she goes on to live in a castle in 1960s Denmark and a cabin in 1970s Vermont. With a burning curiosity and vision of a life as yet unformed, she travels overland to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and finally to the place she'll come to call home, Japan.
This memoir is filled with unexpected encounters with the very famous and those unknown and unnamed. On a journey through marriage and motherhood, love, laughter, tragedy and hope, we follow along as Anton makes her way through a life unplanned but well-lived. The View From Breast Pocket Mountain is a story for our time, reminding the reader of our interconnectedness, our shared humanity.
Review
Karen Hill Anton's life has been a remarkable journey, from the United States through Europe and across Asia to Japan. The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is a story woven with great compassion and skill, the ultimate combination. It is a beautiful and deeply moving narrative full of fascinating people, the most fascinating being the author herself.
Roger Pulvers, Author, Peaceful Circumstances
"This is a magnificent memoir—insightful, keenly sensitive, deeply moving, and beautifully written. Having suffered the tragic loss of her closest family members and faced the challenges of living for decades in the Japanese countryside, the author shows, through her own life story, how to transform personal ordeals into sources of inner strength. The deep integrity of her own personality shines through on almost every page. The book can serve as an aspiring testament to the power of patience, courage, and love." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi, President of the Buddhist Association of the U.S.
About the Author
Karen Hill Anton, formerly a columnist for The Japan Times and the Japanese newspaper Chunichi Shimbun, is a cross-cultural competence consultant and coach. She lectures widely on her experience of cross-cultural adaptation and raising four bilingual, bicultural children. Originally from New York City, she's achieved second-degree mastery in Japanese calligraphy and has lived with her husband William Anton in rural Japan since 1975.
Product details
Publisher : Senyume Press (13 September 2020)
Language : English
Paperback : 296 pages
ISBN-10 : 0578696606
ISBN-13 : 978-0578696607
Dimensions : 13.97 x 1.88 x 21.59 cmBest Sellers Rank: 417,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)819 in Asian & Asian Americans Biographies
1,076 in Biographies of Philosophers (Books)
4,775 in Biographies of Travellers & ExplorersCustomer Reviews:
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 195 ratings
About the author
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Karen Hill Anton
Karen Hill Anton is the author of the widely acclaimed and multiple award-winning memoir THE VIEW FROM BREAST POCKET MOUNTAIN. For 15 years she wrote the columns “Crossing Cultures” for the Japan Times and “Another Look” for the Japanese daily Chunichi Shimbun. Her writing appears in various collections, including 'A Passion for Japan' and The 'Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan'. She lectures internationally on her experience of cross-cultural adaptation and raising four bilingual, bicultural children. Originally from New York City, Karen has achieved second-degree mastery in Japanese calligraphy, and has made her home with her husband William Anton in the rural province of Shizuoka, Japan, since 1975.
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Top review from Australia
John McB
5.0 out of 5 stars A gentle, enriching memoirReviewed in Australia on 18 December 2020
Karen Anton Hill's descriptions of the extraordinary things that have happened to her through her life are so gentle, calming, and unassuming it is difficult to put her book down. The reader yearns for her to take your hand gently and lead you through the next extraordinary chapter of her life. I am a Japanophile so I was most interested in the bulk of her life spent living in Japan. But her journey from New York to Europe, back to the US, and then across the Asian continent from Europe to Japan is just as enthralling. It is her life in Japan which fascinated me. Raising a family of three children with her husband Bill, she describes with grace and understanding the challenges of living in Japan. I finished Karen's book with great satisfaction and lessons for my own attitudes about travelling to and spending time in another culture. Thank you Karen for this gift.
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John H. Manhold
5.0 out of 5 stars 5* Intriguing memoire.Reviewed in the United States on 9 May 2021
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The View from Brest Pocket Mountain ISBN: 9780578696607 Senyume Press copyright and written by Karen Hill Anton.
This is a memoir of a woman who has literally travelled the world, while moving from a teen age ‘black hippie’ in the 1960s New York City to become the mother of four children with a highly successful career, along with her equally successful ‘white hippie’ husband. After leaving New York City for stays on both the east and west coasts as well as several countries in Europe and the Middle East and birthing their first child in Denmark, they arrived in Japan with one child and one bag each. They now were “Settled down” in Japan (Permanent Resident Status) with four children, a cat, a dog a moving van’s contents of possessions a far cry from, and dreaded words to, Americans with sixties credentials including the Beatles first concert in the U.S.; Bob Dylan who was “just another folk singer with a guitar playing at Greenwich Village coffee houses; among the throng of 200,000 when Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about his dream; when Woodstock, New York was declared a nation, and more. The mere fact that they should be able to adapt to the Japanese way of life and enjoy the lasting experience in itself is almost unimaginable. As she states: “The Japanese educational system kills curiosity and utterly restricts the minds, imaginations and spirits of children.” “It is a conveyor belt of education they never leave, as the focus is not on learning, but testing, and memorizing facts and figures.” But then, when she had to face an unpleasant series of activities on a return trip to the U.S. while attempting to provide help for a family in obtaining food stamps, there was a total appreciation for many of the Japanese ‘way of life’. Again in her own words: “What a sight to see the name of the wealthiest and “greatest country on earth” attached to the dilapidated office building downtown where identification cards were issued. The windows were so dirty you couldn’t see out, the ceiling vents were taped on, the chairs we were required to sit on were filthy. Crude signs tacked all over the walls warned people of the consequences of fraud in obtaining government aid…The desperately poor Americans who crowded this room could not have been discerned from the denizens of some struggling nation where people would expect nothing at all from their governments.” In Japan she had been through the same lengthy bureaucratic procedures but always was addressed with respect offered by the prepackaged required honorific “san” attached to the name. No civil servant dare utter a name, i.e., just yelling out her first name “Karen”, without the addition of -san and to the last, not first name; e.g. Anton-san. The entire book follows her lengthy travels through many countries in a manner few would consider, but seems totally compatible with the mental set of an individual such as herself and of her husband. Their travels and accomplishments are intriguing to say the least.
Discussion: The story is redundant and repetitive in parts, but is an intriguing tale that memoir readers will truly enjoy as will any reader who likes true adventure travel tales.
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ANGELA JEFFS
5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves all the praise it is receivingReviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 August 2021
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When I read Karen’s book, I cried. A strange response you may think. But the tears were a mix of envy, admiration and regret. Envy for a book so well-written and fascinating that it is receiving awards right, left and centre, and quite rightly so. Admiration for a life more than well-lived. And regret that our paths had not crossed while I too was living in Japan. We knew of one another, of course, both writing for The Japan Times, but for some reason we never actually met. I am sad about that. What did make me smile, however, was how often in life we had moved forward in parallel. I too studied Laban dance and movement, she in New York, I in the UK. And when she was exploring Hampstead, I was just to a mile or so away to the west and we may well have passed one another in the street and (hopefully) smiled. We both went to Japan to help move our lives along and did. We both contributed to the same newspaper. And I too met Elizabeth Taylor, not intimately as Karen did, but in a lift at the Hotel Seiyo. This author's memoir of survival and the capacity to overcome and absorb cultural challenges all around the globe that would send most home screaming for help is one of the best I have ever read and deserves all the praise it is receiving. I could not be more pleased and happier for her.
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TT
5.0 out of 5 stars Relatable, and couldn’t put it down.Reviewed in Germany on 8 November 2020
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As a Japanese native starting a family abroad, there were so many relatable experiences and emotions. Thank you for sharing these wonderful stories from your life.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully inspiring and interesting book!Reviewed in Japan on 17 December 2023
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Karen’s story of her life in the US and Japan is so interesting and awe-inspiring! As someone who also has made a home in Japan, so many parts are very relatable and yet other parts of her story are surprising, informative and eye-opening. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it!
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S. Knode
5.0 out of 5 stars What a life story!Reviewed in the United States on 1 October 2023
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I picked up Karen Anton Hill’s memoir expecting to read about an expat’s view of life in Japan. Hill provides this unique lens - and so much more. Her story is cross-continental, multi-cultural, exhilarating, aspirational, and real. Highly recommend.
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An intimate portrayal of resisting society’s expectations
Karen Hill Anton's “A Thousand Graces" centers on a young woman who takes her first steps toward adulthood by leaving her home in the countryside to go to college and live on her own terms.
Karen Hill Anton's “A Thousand Graces" centers on a young woman who takes her first steps toward adulthood by leaving her home in the countryside to go to college and live on her own terms.
BY KRIS KOSAKA
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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Aug 27, 2023
There’s no doubt American writer Karen Hill Anton knows Japan, past and present. As a resident of rural Shizuoka Prefecture for nearly 50 years, she reveals a perspicuous understanding of her setting on every page of her debut novel, “A Thousand Graces.”
The book centers on a young Japanese woman, Chie Uchida, who grapples with the constraints of life in the countryside and the gender expectations of Japanese society in the 1970s. Skillfully rendered with Anton’s detached yet wise narration, Chie’s difficulties bearing societal pressures and her uncertainty about what she wants in life are both realistic and painful to witness. An early description captures Chie’s emotional struggle: “She wondered how much of her life she would be able to create, how much she would be able to leave up to chance. While she sensed the temptation of what could be imagined, she was fearful of what was unknown, and feared most any big change that would take her away from her life, her family, from all she knew. Still, she could spend hours daydreaming about things she knew she didn’t know.”
A Thousand Graces, By Karen Hill Anton. 244 pages, SENYUME PRESS, Fiction.
Anton’s sensitive depiction of rural life contrasted with Chie’s hopeful city dreams — to study English and avoid becoming an “office lady” and then a wife as people expect of her — reads authentic. But “A Thousand Graces” is not really about country life versus city life in Japan, or Western cultural influences. Anton instead explores fate and free will in a way that goes beyond the novel’s setting to show the complicated collusion between youthful dreams and harsh realities for all people.
The author does this through the characters surrounding Chie, who each struggle with their own conflicts with desires and real life. Though they are loving and supportive, Chie’s traditional parents wield high expectations: her mother, who abandoned her dreams in order to support a parent after a family tragedy, wants more for Chie than the limitations and menial labor of a farmer’s wife; her father, on the other hand, believes a good marriage and raising children will guarantee Chie’s happiness. Her younger brother, Isao, also navigates his expectations for the future as his parents search for a prospective wife for him.
Most of the story takes place at Chie’s local junior college where she meets two influential teachers whose attentions put her through an emotional wringer: Carl Rosen, a literature professor from New York; and Toshi Sakai, Rosen’s close friend who acts as Chie’s academic advisor. Toshi’s wife and Chie’s wealthy childhood friend also appear as foils, demonstrating what could have been had she chosen a different path. The intertwining narratives of these characters start and end with Chie as Anton weaves together a compelling tale that ultimately feels universal.
“A Thousand Graces” is Anton’s first foray into fiction; her memoir, “The View from Breast Pocket Mountain,” was published three years ago and won the grand prize for Memoir Magazine’s Memoir Prize for Books. Although some points in the novel’s narrative may feel unearned and uncomfortable, propelled more by circumstance than choice, it is true to life — and Anton’s elegant prose never disappoints. Chie’s “graces” linger in the mind, long after closing the novel on her life.
KEYWORDS
KAREN HILL ANTON
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BOOK REVIEW | A Memoir by Karen Hill Anton: The View from Breast Pocket Mountain
In her inspirational memoir, Karen Hill Anton describes how cultures can act as gateways to new human encounters rather than as barriers.
Published 9 months ago on April 19, 2023By Jason Morgan, Reitaku University"The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir" by Karen Hill Anton. (© Senyume Press 2020)
English speakers in Japan will surely know the name Karen Hill Anton.
Anton has lived with her husband and children in an out-of-the-way part of Shizuoka Prefecture since 1975. She was the author of the long-running "Crossing Cultures" column at The Japan Times — which is where I first learned of her long ago.
Karen Hill Anton has written for other Japan-based publications as well. Over the decades, she has established herself as a voice of wisdom, honesty, and gracefulness. Many foreigners who live in Japan, or want to, have come to rely on Anton's words as a source of sound advice. (Many Japanese people, too, read Anton for her insights into the human condition.)
Karen Hill Anton
Karen Hill Anton (via author's website)
Not Entirely about Japan
I was excited to learn of the publication of Anton's memoir, The View from Breast Pocket Mountain (Senyume Press, 2020). Based on the title — Anton and her family long resided in an old farmhouse on Futokoroyama ("Breast Pocket Mountain") in Shizuoka — I assumed the memoir would be about the author's life in Japan.
As I started reading The View from Breast Pocket Mountain, however, I realized I had pegged Karen Hill Anton into far too narrow a hole. Anton's memoir starts, logically enough, with her own childhood. Not in Japan. In New York City.
With rich, but entirely unpretentious, prose sketches, Anton recalls her pre-Japan life. Her strong, loving father, her ailing mother, her first brushes with literature, and her gradual awakening to the big world outside her Harlem tenement complex, Washington Heights.
From there, Anton tells readers about her adventures in travel, including long stints in Denmark, life in rural Vermont, and topsy-turvy days and nights in San Francisco. It is not until Chapter 14 (page 135) that Anton steps out of an airplane at Haneda Airport, beginning a new life in Japan.
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A Writerly Memoir
Reading through The View from Breast Pocket Mountain, the first half of which is not about Japan, I realized I had far too narrowly pegged Karen Hill Anton in yet another way. I always associated her with Japan, but of course there was more to her life than her adopted country.
But also, I gained renewed respect for Anton as a writer as I nestled into the pages of her latest book. I have long admired Karen Hill Anton as a newspaper columnist. But The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is not journalism. It should be seen as a literary effort.
What Anton is doing in The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is much more than simply recalling things that happened in the past. She is building up a work of art.
Anton does this by providing glimpses of Japan before she gets here. She is interested in a macrobiotic diet, for example. Michio Kushi, who helped introduce macrobiotic eating in the United States, taught the man who would become Anton's husband (Billy) about the benefits of macrobiotics.
Michio Kushi in 2007. (© Kushi Institute)
A Work of Art
Long before coming to Japan, or even thinking about it, Anton read books on Zen Buddhism, such as Paul Reps' compilation Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.
And, it is so that Billy can study at a dojo in Japan that Anton and her young daughter Nanao travel together to the country that will become their lifelong home. Most of the trip is by car — a leaky Volkswagen — across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We track the trio across Afghanistan and Iran, but Japan is always faintly on the horizon.
As the reader follows Anton's memoir, he or she also follows her slowly growing entanglement with Japan. All of this makes for one of the finest memoirs I can remember reading.
I recommend the award-winning The View from Breast Pocket Mountain to anyone with an interest in Japan. Or, failing that, to anyone who enjoys good writing, who likes books that like one back by repaying interest with reading joy.
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Somei Yoshino petals dancing in the wind. (© Hidemitsu Kaito)
A Well-Lived Life
The second half of The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is about Japan. (Mostly — there is a tragic American interlude that tinges the second half with some sorrow.)
Here, readers will discover Anton learning about herself and her new world with the same sense of adventure that sent her on her travels at a young age.
Anton learns calligraphy, eventually achieving an extraordinary level of skill in the art. She raises children and sends them to Japanese schools. She teaches dance (a lifelong passion). And she thrives.
Anton does it all by making connections on a human level. There are cultural and linguistic obstacles to navigate. But Anton knows herself well enough to know that people are people and there are always new friends to be made.
"I've looked for what is good in people, and I've always found it," Anton says.
This seems to me to be the secret to her well-lived life.
"I would stand out in Japan, always," Anton writes from a place of maturity as a cross-cultural adventurer. "But I could also fit in."
births
Children play in the foliage in Saitama Prefecture. (© Sankei)
Japan in New Lights
I encourage those reading this to buy a copy of The View from Breast Pocket Mountain and start reading it right away. JAPAN Forward enthusiasts will undoubtedly learn much from Karen Hill Anton about Japan, about how this country looks through the eyes of someone from very far away.
Someone who, in the end, came to appreciate Japan as home in a world alive with different cultures.
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That cultures can act as gateways to human encounters is due entirely to people like Karen Hill Anton. Anton embraced the good in people in Japan, and so many in Japan, and around the world, embraced her back.
About the Book
Title: The View From Breast Pocket Mountain
Subtitle: A Memoir
Author: Karen Hill Anton
Publisher: Senyume Press (2020)
ISBN: 9780578696607
Format: Available in paperback ($18.5 USD) and eBook format ($4.98 USD).
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