It's no coincidence that the quiet Before the Coffee Gets Cold, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, is reminiscent of a three-act play. Author Toshikazu Kawaguchi is also an accomplished playwright. In a dowdy, windowless coffee shop, characters come and go, and "the three wall clocks each showed different times." Nagure, along with his wife, Kei, and her sister Kazu, run a shop that has seen better days; an urban legend from years ago, claiming it "could transport people back to the past," offered a brief flurry of fame. Although the notoriety is mostly forgotten, the truth is that the café is a portal for time traveling, and the proprietors are always prepared for customers who ask to do so.
There are rules, of course. After one travels back in time, sitting in the portal chair (usually occupied by a ghostly woman) with a special blend of coffee, Kazu instructs "if you don't drink all the coffee before it gets cold... it will be your turn to be the ghost sitting in this seat." The most consequential rule is that "no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present."
Some time-travel stories are madcap or contain alternative futures. Kawaguchi, by contrast, understands how the small stories of people's lives can motivate a wish to jump into another time. Because time travel won't change the present, the book suggests, the only thing that can change is one's reaction to the present. This quiet, powerful book encourages readers to overcome difficulties in the present and say what needs to be said before it's too late. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.