Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Review by Rachel Farmer
On a drizzly autumn day, an unnamed woman and her mother wander slowly but purposefully through the streets of Tokyo, taking in the parks, the museums, the restaurants and food stalls. Their brief stay in Japan brings new and familiar sights and sounds, recalls memories from the past, turning points that did not seem so at the time.
Mother and daughter are on pleasant terms but there is a distance between them, a certain formality that comes from the disparity between their ages and experiences, and as a natural consequence of their intensely private personalities. That distance is as slight as it is insurmountable. Yet some of it falls between the daughter the narrator wishes she could be and the one she is capable of being. Despite her best efforts, she is unable to indulge her mother’s musings on life and the human soul—“She was looking at me then, and I knew that she wanted me to be with her on this, to follow her, but to my shame I found that I could not and worse, that I could not even pretend.” Instead, the perspectives of the two women occupy distinct spaces, moving in parallel and unable to meet.
In essence, Cold Enough for Snow examines the subtleties in human relationships, the impossibility of knowing others’ inner lives. By looking back on certain small but formative moments in her past, the narrator probes instead into her own inner life, her own self. As the two women meander through the Japanese capital, the narrator’s thoughts wander into the realm of memory, reminiscing about her childhood, the lives of family members, her experiences at university and working at a restaurant. But some memories are more nebulous. Is a remembered anecdote actually a story about her uncle’s past or a plotline from some TV show?
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au surpassed 1500 entries to win the 2020 Novel Prize, awarded by Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo and New Directions. And it’s easy to see why. The book is a triumph of subtlety and precision, its observations piercing yet compassionate, fleeting yet profound. The story of mother and daughter in Japan is firmly rooted in the here and now, each moment vividly imagined and meticulously described. The reader is invited to feel the cool shade of the trees in the park, smell the rich aroma of the soil on a mountain trail, taste the hot noodles from a street vendor.
This is not the book for someone who needs a gripping plot, or even compelling character arcs. In Cold Enough for Snow, the characters simply exist as they are, their complexities glimpsed but not exposed in their entirety. Rather, this book consists, first and foremost, of an atmosphere, a series of moments, of memories. In a frenzied world, this book feels like a deep, slow breath of fresh air.
Cold Enough For Snow is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, 23rd February 2022