Tales From the Cafe

Tales from the Café (2017) is the second book in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s series. The first, Before the Coffee Gets Cold was published in Japan in 2015 and was adapted from a play. The series also includes Before Your Memory Fades (2018), Before We Say Goodbye (2021), and Before We Forget Kindness (2023).

Before the Coffee Gets Cold takes place in a small, underground Tokyo café called Funiculi Funicula. It remains almost unchanged since its opening in 1874: It has no air conditioning (though it is always pleasantly cool), several clocks on the wall that tell the wrong time, and there is an antique cash register. Its claim to fame is that it offers patrons an opportunity to travel back in time. One of the most important aspects of the first novel is that it establishes the rules of time travel within the café. The rules are also a particularly unique element of Kawaguchi’s use of magical realism and subversion of time travel tropes, whereby time travelers must always be careful not to disrupt the future.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is divided into four sections: The Lovers, Husband and Wife, The Sisters, and Mother and Child.