“ A Chance To Redo the Past in ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’.” The Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 2020). Hong lauds Kawaguchi’s ability to “find lasting emotional resonance” as “interwoven into what initially feels like a whimsical escape are existential conundrums of love and loss, family and freedom, life and death” (Hong, Terry. However, Battaglia praises Kawaguchi’s handling of relationships. While this approach may be useful in the context of guiding actors in their interpretation of stage characters, it goes against the American literary preference for “show don’t tell” in narrative fiction, which promotes action over exposition. “ Working Within Limits in ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’.” Chicago Review of Books, November 19, 2020). Battaglia goes further, stating that “the book is written in a way deeply reminiscent of stage direction” and that Kawaguchi struggles with exposition, as he “often resorts to authorial asides, in which he lays bare the weight of his situations and the depth of his characters” (Battaglia, Ian J. Battaglia remarked that Kawaguchi’s style, as translated by Trousselot, is often repetitive and inelegant. Both the Christian Science Monitor’s Terry Hong and Chicago Review of Books’ Ian J. His third novel, Before Your Memory Fades (2018), will be published in English in fall of 2022 and describes a time-traveling café set in Japan’s Hokkaido Prefecture.Īmerican reviewers of the novel have had mixed responses. It was published in Japanese in 2017 and in English in 2021. Kawaguchi has since written a sequel Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café, which introduces new characters to the same café. He adapted the book from the commercially successful play of the same title, which won the 2013 Suginami Drama Festival prize. Prior to debuting as a novelist with this book, author Kawaguchi was an esteemed playwright in his native Japan.
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