Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by Fitzcarraldo Editions, New Directions (US) and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.

Book blurb

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: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here – is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? 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.

My (short) thoughts

This is a thoughtful and engaging story with a mother and daughter meeting in Japan to holiday together. It has been a while since they have been together and the story is told from the viewpoint of the daughter. It is a slow paced read but you get caught up in the leisurely pace with the detailed talk of art, their lives, upbringing, language and interesting bits of information that are being shared. There are differences between the two as well. This ever changing narrative is a seamless process that seems to have an underlying yearning for closeness, a desire to be understood and to understand.

There is an elegance to the writing. The places and situations are being played out in real time it would seem yet there is always something that feels just out of reach, something unsaid, an impression that this is, perhaps, a remembrance of a time past or a time wished for rather than the here and now. This is reflected in one particular instance when the daughter returns to the hotel after a long walk when she slept out overnight, upon enquiring about her mother the desk clerk indicated that she was the only person occupying the room. The book goes on without further explanation leaving the reader to decide for themselves what the significance may be.

I enjoyed the setting in Japan, a country I have never visited, it was beautifully brought to life by the author, the descriptions of what the two women did together, what they thought and what they talked about and discussed was fascinating and engaging. It was told from the daughters perspective which, upon reflection, adds to the ethereal quality of the story. It is a poignant, eloquent and impressive piece.

I found it an enchanting and mesmerising story that held my attention throughout and I would highly recommend it.

Book: Purchased

Information

Published: Fitzcarraldo Editions (23 Feb. 2022) | 145 pages

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Winner of the Readings Prize – New Australian Fiction 2022 | Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction 2023 | Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature 2023 | Longlisted for the 2023 Australian Indie Book Awards | Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2023

Author

Jessica Au is a writer based in Melbourne. She has worked as deputy editor at the quarterly journal Meanjin and as a fact-checker for Aeon magazine. Her novel, Cold Enough for Snow (2022), is the inaugural winner of The Novel Prize and was published by Giramondo, New Directions and Fitzcarraldo Editions, with translation in eighteen languages.

Author website | Guardian article | Read an excerpt from Granta