Review: The View from Breast Pocket Mountain by Karen Hill Anton

Spanning decades and more than half the world, The View from Breast Pocket Mountain by Karen Hill Anton is a revelatory memoir like few others – a vibrant and unpredictable journey of perseverance, parenthood, and personal growth.

Navigating an unfair world as a young Black girl, the author was introduced early to the limitations of America, which set her gaze on the horizon from an early age. With her mother bouncing between mental institutions and nursing homes during her formative years, Anton became fiercely independent and ambitious, soon moving out and living in New York City to pursue her many dreams: “A wider world was waiting for me. There wasn’t one thing I wanted to do, but many.”

Intoxicated early by a love for travel, but simultaneously tied to her family and life in America, the pull and the conflict of moving is a perpetual theme throughout the book, one that will resonate with anyone who has spent significant time outside the United States’ borders. Anton’s depictions of life in various cities – from the cramped quarters of Greenwich Village flats and the flower-lined streets of Spain, to the quiet simplicity of Vermont, the Copenhagen plazas clean enough to eat off, and the exotic serenity of Japan, are each imbued with the personal intimacy of experience.

Anton has lived in and loved in each of these places, enabling her to share an authentic and kaleidoscopic perspective of the spectrum a life can take. Her journey of motherhood is also courageous and fiercely independent; like a nomad from another time, she seeks stability and safety for her daughter, without sacrificing her own identity, and without acquiescing to the expectations of society.

From the philosophical struggles of cultural immersion and the challenging paradox of defining home in a transient life, Anton has made her way through the world in a manner most would never consider, but she is also unafraid of showing the darker and harder sides of a non-traditional life, revealing the unique challenges of a life diverged from the straight-and-narrow map. This is not a glorified travelogue, but rather a perceptive exploration of belonging – what it means for different people, and how we can achieve it. Each chapter of Anton’s life splays out like a blank canvas she is eager to fill with experience, meeting new people, exploring cities, delving into cultural traditions, and ultimately, living a life of perpetual learning.

On a technical level, the prose is clean, but not manicured; there is still plenty of personality and informality, even in the most evocative lines and internal reflections. Some sections feel mildly rushed, but in a full life so packed with change, some transitional periods are simply not as important. Most importantly, there is a tenderness in the writing, laid like a humble mask over the boldness and courage Anton displays at every unexpected turn. The storytelling is frank and unfiltered, with a remarkable level of detail, particularly given the many decades that have passed since some of the earliest memories.

As a whole, this brilliant and eye-opening memoir reads like a compelling work of fiction, mixed with an exhilarating manifesto about being truly open to the world, made all the more inspiring given the incredible life spilled out on the page.

The View from Breast Pocket Mountain was the Gold Winner of the 2020 SPR Book Awards.