Nothing but the Rain

January 9, 2023
Salman presents her strange, disquieting debut as the diaries of retired doctor Laverne Gordon, written to be her “backup brain” as her memories are literally washed away by the rain. It rains ceaselessly in Aloisville, and contact with a single drop can erase one’s short-term memory. The more drenched one gets, the farther back the amnesia goes. The narrative leaves the “why” behind this phenomenon ambiguous, more interested in exploring its ramifications. “Little sugar dolls left in the rain, that’s what we are now. If you’re not careful, you’ll melt all the way down to the infant inside. And if she melts away, you’re done.” This is what happened to an affluent neighborhood before the start of the book, and Laverne is traumatized by having been called upon to euthanize the empty shells of humans left behind. Now Aloisville has implemented a buddy system, pairing “old harpy” Laverne with irritatingly optimistic Katie Rathbone and her toddling daughter, Zoe. When Katie concocts a suicide mission to get through the rain and past the unidentified soldiers keeping the town under quarantine, Laverne refuses to join her—but Katie’s not about to take no for an answer. What follows is a devastating story of people forced to choose between survival and freedom. Salman shows real promise.

January 1, 2023

DEBUT The constant rain in tiny Aloisville chills to the bone. No one can remember when it started raining or how long they've been trapped inside. There are walls and gates and guards, and no one knows why. Something in the rain makes everyone forget--forget yesterday, forget their loved ones and their lives, forget how they got there in the first place. Are they quarantined for a disease outbreak or a scientific experiment? And can one elderly woman manage to remember enough to find a way out? This dystopian novella is as chilling as that rain. Through one woman's diary, the fractured life of the town is laid bare, and the creeping horror is in just how much they don't remember and don't know. Everyone is an unreliable narrator, especially the diarist. This becomes a story about the cost of survival in a world where all transgressions can be forgotten, even the one that put them there in the first place. VERDICT Recommended for readers who prefer their apocalypses amorphous and like their chills of horror to come from the implications of the unknown.--Marlene Harris

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 10, 2023
The rain in Aloisville is relentless, and no one knows when it began--because each drop of it causes memories to wash away. Elderly woman Laverne begins to keep a journal in hopes of keeping some memories alive, an increasingly practical necessity in a world where it's all too easy to be caught in the rain and forget where you were headed or when the water becomes safe to drink. When a young friend of Laverne's tells her they have a plan to bust through the mysterious barricade keeping them in town, she is skeptical. She's not one for wild plans--she'd rather lean on what she knows in a world where one misstep risks hollowing you out. This quick-read dystopia is vivid, fast-moving, and quietly chilling. In just 96 pages, Salman tells a haunting story that digs into how much we really depend on short-term memory and recall for survival, with a panic attack-prone, stubborn old woman at its center. A great new novella for fans of eerie, surreal horror and a cutthroat need to survive.

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