Jessica Au
Giramondo Publishing
2022
112
Paperback
Contemporary Fiction
Borrowed Copy
A young woman accompanies her mother on a holiday in Japan. The daughter has arranged their itinerary. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafés and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s allegiances in Australia. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them.
Cold Enough for Snow was a short but impactful read. I found a lot of personal resonance with the narrator's thoughts and feelings, and it was fascinating to watch the conversation unfold between the mother and daughter, looking at what was said and what was held back. The prose was lyrical and atmospheric, and while I read this over three lunch breaks at work, had I been at home with it, I could have devoured it in a single sitting. I am giving this one 4.5 stars.
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