Weekly Reader: The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir by Karen Hill Anton; Brilliant Touching Memoir About A Woman Searching For and Finding Her Purpose in Japan

 

Weekly Reader: The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir by Karen Hill Anton; Brilliant Touching Memoir About A Woman Searching For and Finding Her Purpose in Japan

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Karen Hill Anton's memoir The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is. beautiful, brilliant, and touching memoir about an African-American woman who searches for her purpose and finds it in Japan.

Anton is like most memoirists, gifted with a good memory and the ability to captivate the senses and Reader's interests through the various scenarios in her colorful life. When she describes her childhood in Harlem with her two siblings and single father, her closeness to her father is sincerely felt. She remembers her institutionalized mother who had amnesia and couldn't always remember her children when they visited her in the institution in which she was placed.

 Anton also recalled how her father efficiently performed the duties of mother and father while giving his children basic lessons from home before starting school and giving his kids an appreciation for classical music and art. Because of his experience with a typewriter and having an encyclopedia knowledge, he was often called to draw up petitions and lead organizations. Anton's memories show him as a loving and strong willed  man who gave the gift of vast knowledge to his children.

Anton studied Art history and modern dance while living in Greenwich Village. She met figures like Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22. However, her real education came about during her various travels. At 19, she moved to London and hitchhiked through Europe. Travel changes a person's perspective and broadens their personal experiences. A telling moment occurs when Anton returns to New York City. Comparing it to the clean streets of Copenhagen, she asked why they were so dirty and was stunned when she was told that they had always been like this.  

In the United States and Europe, Anton became involved with the arts scene befriending various artists and musicians. She also met Don, an immature self-centered man. While Anton was a willing member of the Flower Power generation and was herself pretty free spirited, her relationship with Don showed that even the freest of spirits has their limits. Those limits are reached when someone constantly puts themselves and their partner in debt, when despite threats of homelessness and hunger they still won't at least try to look for work, and when one partner is saddled with a child while the other leaves. Don left Anton pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Nanao, in Denmark.

When some memoirists write, they could be considered name droppers. Anton on the other hand could be thought of as a place dropper. Many of her accounts are of her various travels and the experiences that she had are spread throughout the book. Shortly after Nanao was born, she and Anton lived in Switzerland where Anton worked as a cook. They then moved to a college town in Plainfield, Vermont where she worked as an administrative assistant and audited classes.

 It was also in Vermont where she deepened her relationship with Billy Anton, a friend that she had known since her high school days in New York City. They remained friends who shared books, ideals, and travels even though they were with other people. After Anton's separation from Don and Billy's divorce, the two became lovers. They eventually married and Billy adopted Nanao as his daughter. Billy led Anton on the adventure of a lifetime by being offered a job to teach at a dojo in Japan. Feeling a bit lost after the death of her father, Anton left her Plainfield job behind and she and Nano packed up and headed for Japan with Billy.

Some of the most interesting passages occur during Anton's road trip to Japan and her and her family's  lives in Japan. There are many moments where Anton felt out of place as a black woman in countries where she was in the minority. There is also a suspenseful passage which describes a near assault in the Middle East. The majority of the people that they met on their road trip were helpful and always ready with a bed, food, directions, or a break time to relax and talk while their children played.

Their arrival in Japan was originally fraught with tension as Billy worked as an instructor and Anton as a cook at a dojo that served more or less as a cult. Men, women, and children were separated and Yoshida, the sensei, resorted to physical abuse. The final straw for Anton and her family was during Christmas during a party when they saw a staff member bruised and bloody after an encounter with Yoshida. Worried that could happen to each other or Nanao, Anton and her family decided to leave the dojo. They eventually settled in a rural farming village on Breast Pocket Mountain.

The Anton Family's time on Breast Pocket Mountain has the typical moments of an outsider trying to adjust to a new life by growing used to the customs, learning the language, and getting used to the hard work living on a farm entails. But it is nice to read that Anton and her family finally felt secure and at home with new friends, beautiful landscape, and a place to raise Nanao and their three younger children: Mine, Mario, and Lila. Billy taught English while Anton studied calligraphy and wrote columns for the Japan Times and Chunichi Shimbun. They went through a realistic period of isolation,  marriage counseling, and considering separation or divorce. However, they are still married and still live at Breast Pocket Mountain.

The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is a good book that reminds Readers that they can find home anywhere, even if it's far from the country in which they were born.