“An intimate memoir filled with breathtaking detail. Complicated by her Japanese upbringing that demands obedience and self-sacrifice, Ito confronts her demons while striving to build a family of her own in the United States. A fascinating read that will resonate with anyone who has experienced unresolved childhood trauma.”—Lori Matsukawa, journalist and author of Brave Mrs. Sato

"At the center of this remarkable memoir is a heartfelt desire of a mother to raise her child with love, to preserve her marriage, and, for these things to happen, to escape the grip that anxiety has on her . . . This balance teaches us something worth learning."—John R Wallace, PhD, Senior Lecturer Emeritus of Japanese Literature, University of California at Berkeley

“Shigeko Ito’s The Pond Beyond the Forest is a page-turning and candid memoir that chronicles the experience of parenting a teen while dealing with the fallout from one’s own childhood trauma. In turns hilarious and poignant, this memoir is so real. Many will see themselves in this story and no longer feel alone.”—Theo Pauline Nestor, author of Writing Is My Drink

“Couched within a Japan-to-America immigrant’s tale, this memoir carries the reader along the universal human journey of seeking an authentic sense of self, free from the unconscious, intrusive, and invalidating beliefs embedded during childhood. Readers are sure to appreciate aspects of themselves or loved ones in Ito’s revealing and emotionally fraught self-accounting.”—Boadie Dunlop, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine