Nothing But the Rain is the debut novella of Naomi Salman, a writer who has published fiction in both French and English and has been nominated for both the Prix du Jeune Écrivain and the Eisner Award.
Published by Tor.com on March 14, 2023, this dystopian science fiction novella spans just 93 pages in paperback -- but it leaves an impression far larger than its size suggests.
Told entirely through the diary entries of its protagonist, Laverne -- a 63-year-old retired doctor desperately trying to survive in a town where relentless rain slowly erases people’s memories -- the novella feels less like reading a story than stepping inside the unraveling mind of someone whose only instinct left is survival.
Laverne lives in Aloisville, where the rain has become something far more terrifying than weather. Every downpour strips away another piece of memory, leaving residents unable to trust even their own minds. The phenomenon only worsens with time.
Why is it happening?
No one knows, at least not the people trapped inside the town.
Phones no longer display the correct time. Food inexplicably falls from the sky onto people’s doorsteps. Armed guards stand at the town’s borders, though whether they are protecting the residents or preventing the truth from escaping depends entirely on whom you believe. Laverne suspects the latter.
Naturally, readers will want answers.
But that is exactly where Naomi Salman shows remarkable restraint.
Because the story is told entirely through Laverne’s diary, readers know only what she knows. If Laverne cannot explain what is happening, neither can we. Rather than frustrating the narrative, this uncertainty becomes one of its greatest strengths. We experience the mystery exactly as she does, confused, frightened, and increasingly desperate.
The novel’s structure amplifies that experience beautifully.
Torn journal pages, missing entries, rushed handwriting, and incomplete thoughts transform the diary into something more than a storytelling device. They become evidence of a mind struggling against oblivion. Instead of simply reading about memory loss, readers begin to experience it.
In many ways, we become Laverne.
And because we inhabit her perspective so completely, our judgment changes as well.
Viewed from the outside, Laverne might appear bitter, selfish, or even cruel. She is undeniably cynical, deeply misanthropic, and often impatient with the people around her. Yet from within her own thoughts, every questionable decision feels painfully understandable. Survival has stripped away politeness, leaving only brutal honesty.
That honesty is also what makes her such a compelling narrator.
Her dry wit, razor-sharp sarcasm and refusal to indulge in sentimentality make her consistently entertaining, even when the circumstances are bleak. She is the sort of protagonist who remains memorable long after the final page.
At the emotional centre of the novella is her relationship with Katie Rathbone, a young single mother raising an unusually calm toddler.
Katie represents hope.
She wants to join a group of fifty residents planning to march toward the military blockade and livestream their existence to the outside world as proof that Aloisville has not disappeared. Laverne, by contrast, sees the plan as little more than collective suicide.
Despite their opposing outlooks, both women share the same desperate instinct: the determination to survive.
That shared struggle gives the novella much of its emotional momentum. As the story progresses, readers become increasingly invested not only in uncovering the mystery but also in discovering which vision of survival will ultimately prevail.
The novella is not without flaws.
Aside from Laverne, Katie is the only character who receives substantial development. Dave Logan, despite playing an important role in the narrative, remains frustratingly distant and is given little opportunity to emerge as a fully realized character. Expanding Laverne’s relationships with more of the townspeople might have made Aloisville itself feel richer and more inhabited.
Still, this shortcoming never seriously undermines the reading experience.
What ultimately carries Nothing But the rain is not its world-building or even its mystery, but its emotional atmosphere. Anxiety, confusion, and quiet despair seep into every page, creating an experience that lingers well beyond its modest length.
The novella’s greatest achievement is that it resists easy answers.
Readers looking for a tightly plotted mystery in which every question is neatly resolved may find themselves disappointed.
But for those who enjoy stories driven by mood rather than certainty—for readers willing to sit with uncertainty, inhabit confusion, and embrace questions that may never be answered—Nothing But the Rain offers something quietly remarkable.
Small in size but emotionally immense, it proves that sometimes the most haunting stories are the ones that refuse to explain themselves.
Raisa Hasan, an A‑Level candidate at Scholastica, finds poetry a life‑saving force that pulses through every corner of the world.
