The author of “Before the coffee gets cold” is one Toshikazu Kawaguchi … or rather … you know there is this weird custom where sometimes people switch around Japanese names and sometimes they keep them as they are?
Yea, thought so. In Japanese it is written 川口俊和, and that somehow struck me different. So Kawaguchi is the family name.

The setting

First: the technicalities.
This book is not strictly realistic in terms of physics: There is time travel.
The author Kawaguchi Toshikazu is a playwright, which kind of explains the special locale of the book “Before the coffee gets cold”. (Presumably the sequels as well: There are five books in the series, but I have only read the first one as of now.) The plot unfolds in one place: the guest room of a windowless café. That is the closest cousin to a theatre stage imaginable! People can come and go through the exit, or they can go out of sight into the back. The stage directions write themselves.

Time Travel

Giving a short overview of this book involves talking about time travel.
We all know the conundrums of time travel paradoxa from dozens of fictional works. What happens if you go back in time to solve a problem, and then it is solved, so why should your future self go back in time? Or, more common and more brutal: You go back in time to kill the parents of some guy you hate, so he never gets born. Now you don’t have any reason to hate him. So you don’t go back in time … etc.

The obvious answer to this is that you either cannot go back in time, or if you can, then you can only observe.
But this story has a different idea: It has The Rules.

There are rules to time travel, and the most important one is: You cannot change the present.
This is already where most people tap out and say: Well, then what’s the point? And that is exactly what is happening in this book.

The plot

Without spoiling too much like a bad person would, the plot revolves around the café and some of its guests, and the fact that there is a certain way how you can travel through time in this café. But there are limits to what you can do while travelling: For one, your time is rather limited (“Before the coffee gets cold”). For another, your movement is restricted. The set of people to meet is also not great. There is great risk involved. And also, whatever you do, you cannot change the situation of the present.

Still, in the four acts of “Before the coffee gets cold” a number of people make the decision to go ahead and do it. They travel through time.

Connecting to fellow humans

Now, the meaning.
Clever people will immediately pick up on the wording: “you cannot change the situation of the present”. That is oddly specific. So you CAN change SOMETHING?

Indeed, you can. And this is where the book turns into a tear-jerker. These are no “get rich fast” or “fight the bad-guys” time travel stories. These are hard-hitting tales about loss and sorrow. Because if you cannot change the present, what can be the only reason you need to travel through time? It is because there is something that you cannot do in your time, nor going forward. Because of the rules, you cannot change that outcome, you cannot prevent the loss. But you can win an experience, and with it, a new perspective.

Recommendations:

There is only one aspect I did not like too well … but that would be nitpicking, so I will keep that to me and let you arrive at your own conclusions.

If you have a poetic streak, are an emotional person and like humans, invest in some handkerchiefs and read this.
If you are a tough guy and don’t give a toss about your fellow men, still give it a try. Maybe you can win an experience that can, in some small way, give you a new perspective?