What’s at stake when a woman from Michigan—who’s always stood out at six feet tall—tries to fit in on a remote island in Japan?
Stacy Gleiss’s captivating memoir answers just that. After a childhood defined by a horrific car accident, Gleiss spends years trying to regain a sense of identity; eventually making her way across the globe where she falls in love with the enchanting culture of Japan. But as Gleiss becomes increasingly immersed in the Japanese way of life—first as a teenage bride and then as a mother—she discovers this faraway land isn’t as perfect as she first imagined.
The Six-Foot Bonsai goes behind closed doors in a traditional Japanese family during the 1980s and ’90s, uncovering harsh truths. Gleiss must learn how to transform herself into the ideal Japanese housewife in a culture that holds females to particularly high standards. At the same time, a shocking revelation about her husband tests everything Gleiss once thought she believed in.
A detailed look at the Japanese traditions of marriage, womanhood, and child exploitation, The Six-Foot Bonsai is an intimate account of what it’s like to discover a new place while also discovering yourself.
“Only someone like Stacy Gleiss, once immersed in a mysterious, all-encompassing, and nearly-cultic culture, could write a book with the authenticity and heart of The Six-Foot Bonsai . Her vulnerability to the aching losses of everything she loved, described dispassionately and with great detail, paves the way for a surprising redemption in the end.”Dr. Latayne C. Scott, author of books on cults, including The Mormon Mirage
A Soul Found in the Writing The Six-foot Bonsai is a remarkable story, well told by the only person who can tell it. Author Stacy Gleiss has opened her life and her heart to tell the hardest of truths.As a child in the 50âs and 60âs, like many other children, I would fantasize about living in a foreign land. Could I really fly on a magic Arabian carpet or live in a tree like Mowgli or better still Jane?When I grew older the mystery of these lands rather lessened as I was exposed to magazines like…
A Journey of Self-Discovery The author embarked on her journey as a teenager who traveled to Japan in the late 1970’s and immediately fell in love with its inimitable culture as well as some of the people living in it. Her unfortunate encounter with a smooth-taking pedophile led to years of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of a boorish bully who acted like may spoiled elder sons I have heard about. The difference here, I’d point out, was the extensive evidence he barely hid of his pedophilia tendencies and in her…
Extremely important and powerful read! Even at age 20 I share a strong relationship with the key problems of Japanese culture and what it can bring out in sexual ways, which is expressed in it’s fullest in this book.Stacy Gleiss is a strong person all throughout her life, even through the experiences that would make most people want to commit suicide, and she writes about each event in this book in each event’s detail.This is an incredibly compelling read, and teaches a lesson about the dangers of cultural addiction…