Author(s): Jessica Au

Novel | Australia | Japan | Giramondo

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.

'So calm and clear and deep, I wished it would flow on forever.' - Helen Garner

'Rarely have I been so moved, reading a book: I love the quiet beauty of Cold Enough for Snow and how, within its calm simplicity, Jessica Au camouflages incredible power.' - Edouard Louis

'The quiet intimacy of Jessica Au's novella is beautifully affecting, the unnamed narrator's precise travelogue triggering reflections on home, childhood and relationships...It is melancholic and wistful, but Au finds grace and succour in the small act of observing people, places and art.' - The Guardian

'Au's prose is elegant and measured. In descriptions of bracing clarity she evokes 'shaking delicate impressions' of worlds within worlds that are symbolic of the parts of ourselves we keep hidden and those we choose to lay bare. Put simply, this novel is an intricate and multi-layered work of art - a complex and profound meditation on identity, familial bonds and our inability to fully understand ourselves, those we love and the world around us.' - Jacqui Davies, Books+Publishing

'Cold Enough for Snow is a sensory contemplation of knowledge, performativity, and the integral role of the present in shaping one's past. This book will resonate with solitary bonsai, daughters of mothers, and humans floating backwards through the stories of their lives.' - ArtsHub