“Jessica Au’s “Cold Enough For Snow” challenges our assumptions about what it means to uncover our stories – and ourselves.” Peter C. Baker, The New Yorker

From the Publisher
A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city’s most radical modern art. All the while they talk … But uncertainties abound. … At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another’s inner world.”

This is a beautiful novel that created something of an ethereal reading experience for me. Short enough to read in one sitting, and written without any chapter breaks in a stream of consciousness style, it’s a thought-provoking volume that packs an emotional punch. A slow moving exploration of emotions and memories, and identity and relationships, Au’s beautiful writing stirs up deep feelings and raises many unanswered questions.

This isn’t one of those books that you breeze through to find out what happens next but instead read slowly and carefully, word by word and sentence by sentence, as much to see what’s not being said as what is. If you’re looking for a page-turner with an engrossing plot and loose ends tidied up, this is not the book for you. But if you’re in the mood for a slower paced atmospheric study of life, family and connection that requires some patience, demands reflection and leaves things open-ended, this would be a great choice.

Au’s book was the winner of the 2020 Novel Prize, a relatively new award that “rewards novels which explore and expand the possibilities of the form, and are innovative and imaginative in style” and I think it is definitely a contender for the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist.

Cold Enough for Snow was such an interesting look at the mother/daughter relationship, shared much in the form of a travel journal. I really enjoyed getting to explore Tokyo and other cities in Japan through the eyes of these two women, and Au wrote these little encounters that they had in cafes and shops and museums and galleries with such beauty. The nuanced way that she describes these women, their personalities, and the little habits they have, make them come to life before your eyes. There was a sense of sadness that I felt when reading this. The novella describes the relationship between mother and daughter as maybe one that has been strained over the years and certainly estranged for a period of time. We don't know why the daughter invites her mother to travel to Japan, but you get a sense that perhaps there is something that triggers it. Honestly, I think different readers will come away with different interpretations, but it was such a beautiful and rich story for it being only 104 pages, and I'm excited to see what else Au puts out into the world. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

this was a slow wandering almost relaxing book about a girl and the relationship she has with her mother and the various landscapes she'd been surrounded with over the course of her life. it gave an insight into life in japan through the eyes of a visitor and a resident and i liked the glimpses into the her life before this trip. like i said it's slow, it's short, it's meandering - all compliments!

Jessica Au's Cold Enough for Snow is the most contemplative novel I have read in recent memory. As some of the best short stories do, this novel analyses and muses a very specific yet relatable moment in time.

This novel centres on a trip to Japan with an adult daughter and her mother, told from the perspective of the daughter. This story grapples with the expectation v's reality of travelling with others and travelling with family. As readers we get the idea that this trip is not going as planned and we are as confused as the daughter is about her mother and their relationship.

Overall this novel captures so many complexities of mother/daughter relationships with such beautiful writing, would definitely recommend to any daughters or readers who love to contemplate.

A mother and a daughter visit Japan together in this short but fascinating novella. The writing is very thoughtful and atmospheric, but the author keeps you just on the back foot, never quite giving all the details.

A rewarding read about the nature of relationships.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Delicate novella which meanders back and forth from the present day mother and daughter holiday in Japan, to the daughter's memories and recollections. A nuanced and thought-provoking look at memory and the unknowability of another person. Reminiscent of Sebald. A pleasure to read.

Cold Enough for Snow
by Jessica Au
A middle-aged woman and her mother visit Japan. Her Mother hales from Hong Kong. The daughter is second-generation Chinese. The narrator has lost contact with both; her mother and the Chinese culture.
The daughter is the one who tells the tale. The mother is, for the most part, silent.
The narrative visits museums, art galleries and other cultural locations musing on how we can, or cannot, talk about art.
During her travels, the narrator flashes back to her time at university, where she learned about art. She explores her relationship with art, her culture, and her family.
‘Cold enough for snow is a quiet book. The writing is poetically beautiful. There are well-drawn descriptions of place. The discussions of art are thought provoking.

An atmospheric novella that examines the relationship between a mother and daughter as they travel through Japan, The narrator is reminded of people, memories, family stories throughout the trip, a lot of the time bringing her out of the things her and her mother are experiencing on the trip. Themes that came through were motherhood and care giving, how the roles reverse as we grow older, or in situations where one has to assume the role of caretaker. I think it described really beautifully the narrators frustration with knowledge and education, and her own limits. We see this presented in her mothers contentment with not needing to examine or think about everything so deeply as her daughter does. I enjoyed the deeply reflective and ethereal nature of this book. An enjoyment to read from start to finish.

I was impressed by the depth and storylines in this novel. An unforgettable and is a wonderfully written book that will remain with me for a long time. I loved the descriptions of Tokyo, making me long to visit Japan, as well as the relationship between mother and daughter.

Cold Enough for Snow is a beautifully written novella, full of quiet, elegant prose. Plot and even character development are not the focus here - instead, we enter the highly reflective and yet emotionally distant world of the protagonist, I found the description of the journey taken through Japan to be vivid and mesmerising (it made me itch to be able to travel again). This was a wonderful read, and one I can see myself revisiting to pick up on more little details.

This was a very interesting perspective (and setting) for looking at a mother-daughter relationship where both culture and language seem to be a barrier., The first half of this was 5 star but the second half fell flat; what was initially lyrical and meandering became erratic and unstructured with little resolution. However, I am looking forward to reading more work by Au.

This was such a unique reading experience for me. Cold Enough for Snow is a quiet novel that is seemingly simple but is actually quite deep. We follow an unnamed narrator as she recounts a trip with her mother to Japan. As the novel progresses, we begin to wonder if the mother is real or if she is imagined. The timeline is nonlinear with memories from the narrator's life. Au's prose is rhythmic and controlled, and the novel is well paced with an elegiac feel. This reflective, thought provoking book will stick with me for a while, and it is one that I will reread in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I went into this not knowing much about the book, author or the fact it has already won awards. It's enjoyable to read with a deceptively simple style, and it's short enough to be read in a few days. The descriptions of places (especially the galleries, resturants and trains) are almost painterly - carefully put together while still being detached.

The detachment suits the text, emphasising the gulf between the Daughter and her Mother, and the family dynamics. The memories feel more intimate (as memories do), weaving into the ongoing narrative and making it feel special and close. The Mother remains an almost spectral figure in each scene, the daughter trying to connect to her despite that.

A really, really wonderful book!

Au's novella reads a bit like a memoir/journal because it's mostly reflective, no dialogue between any characters, even though the novel takes place when a daughter takes her elderly mother on a trip to Japan. We see the mother here and there, waiting for her daughter, observing art, but we never really get to know the mother, because the prose travels from present to past, to her childhood, her partner, her reflections on experiences with these people.

The prose is beautiful, and it's a novella where not much happens, other than readers being on the journey in what feels like a journal while the two women travel in Japan.

In many ways a fascinating novella, and I'm glad to have been given the opportunity to read it.

It's reminiscent of both Proust and Ishiguro, the latter being a good thing and the former being at best a mixed blessing. I struggle with Proust. After almost a year on and off I'm not even half way through Swann's Way.

What this novella shares with Proust's masterpiece is being a story where almost nothing happens, and in which much emphasis is placed on the description of minutiae.

A mother and daughter go on holiday together to Japan. It's all told in a flowing, interweaving style from the POV of the daughter, with no dialogue, and jumping with the protagonists thoughts. Thus we hear about her relationship with her partner, house-sitting for a university lecturer, her uncle courting and falling in love, amongst other things. I suppose all of these digressions are somehow connected to the main narrative, but I often failed to see exactly how. Not that that really mattered - I did quite enjoy several of these stories.

However, the description along with nothing really happening makes me loose focus and drift off, which is what keeps happening with Proust. While I enjoy getting detailed descriptions of the way the light falls into a room - so that I can truly imagine being there, seeing it myself, I got annoyed by passages like that about handing a museum ticket person money and getting tickets in exchange - obvious, mundane, and not adding to story nor atmosphere in my opinion.

Au also has some beautiful passages and shrewd observations that I enjoyed and that made me smile. And there's a certain melancholy, an absence, a longing to the story which resonated with me, though it was overall a bit of a mixed bag.

Enmeshing the everyday and the extraordinary, the banalities and profound emotional experiences that coexist to create a life, this slight and unassuming novel is a moving exploration of memory, language and parent–child relationships that deserves to be read as much for its use of words as for the weighty themes it encompasses.

On a trip to Japan, a mother and daughter attempt – without ever discussing it – to come closer to one another, to spool in some of the threads that keep them bound to each other yet a considerable distance apart. The daughter, our narrator, has painstakingly planned the holiday to a country she has visited before, though under different circumstances: she thus experiences a steadily waning sense of familiarity with Japan that mirrors how she feels about her mother, a figure who remains fixed in her mind as she was in her childhood but, occasionally, when seen as she really is, seems far more like a stranger. This sense of half-recognition echoes again in an anecdote concerning the narrator’s sister, about visits she made to Hong Kong first as a child and then as a young woman – one of the many textual layerings Au has built into her novel. This slow building up of a theme comes eventually to ask questions about identity: who do we become as we grow older, how are place and memory so irrevocably intertwined, and how can we share the deepest of bonds yet never truly know another’s mind?

[. . .]

With surprising depths for its slender build, Cold Enough for Snow has an ineffable, haunting quality that makes it a profound experience to read. At times, it could be longer – it seems to exist too quietly in the world – yet the half-finished nature of so many of its scenes is part of its magic, integral to the message it seems to be imparting. A joy to read with its luminous, graceful prose, it is a novel about peripheral experiences that somehow goes straight to the heart.

[excerpted from the full review published on my blog]

Firstly, I love anything with a Tokyo backdrop. That city has my heart and stories that are centered around it are always so engrossing and full of motion and character.
This is a really introspective dive into humanity as a concept. It is gorgeous, raw and consuming.

A delicate work of autofiction – it reads most like a Chloe Aridjis or Rachel Cusk novel – about a woman and her Hong Kong-raised mother on a trip to Tokyo. You get a bit of a flavour of Japan through their tourism (a museum, a temple, handicrafts, trains, meals), but the real focus is internal as Au subtly probes the workings of memory and generational bonds.

The woman and her mother engage in surprisingly deep conversations about the soul and the meaning of life, but these are conveyed indirectly rather than through dialogue: “she said that she believed that we were all essentially nothing, just series of sensations and desires, none of it lasting. … The best we could do in this life was to pass through it, like smoke through the branches”. Though I highlighted a fair few passages, I find that no details have stuck with me. This is just the sort of spare book I can admire but not warm to.

I found this to be an evocative and impressionistic little novella. A daughter takes her mother on a trip to Japan. She has high expectations and has made all sorts of plans but finds that her mother does not care all that much about the activities, the art, the food. Things the daughter has been taught to love and care about during her studies. Her mother however is content just to follow her normal routine. I recognised how as children we want our parents to enjoy what we enjoy, give them what we think of as special, only to find that they have their own tastes and desires.

The setting reminded me of Elise Dusapin's The Pachinko Parlour, which also features a daughter of emigrants going on a trip to Japan with family, although that had a bit more tension and plot whereas here a lot is left to the imagination. The absence of a plot is not a problem at all by the way: the calm story and the nicely integrated flashbacks are interesting enough and I was easily drawn in.

Atmospheric, contemplative novella that recalls the surreal state of mind that I get when traveling in unfamiliar places. Indeed this book reads like the Impressionist paintings and artwork that the narrator reflects on. There’s not a lot of direct plot - a woman goes on a trip to Japan with her mother - but it’s the evocation of her surroundings and her circuitous thoughts as she travels that makes this quiet book feel much deeper. The mix of hyper present observation with internal reminiscence seems like the kind of thing that can only be achieved when unmoored in another place where one feels their own foreignness. This book reminded me of traveling again and the shifting gradients within being adrift, wandering, and discovery.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for the ARC.