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.