An Atavic Fear of Hailstorms

by João Reis

An English original story by João Reis, notable Portuguese translator and author, this neurotic narrator lays in his hospital bed, recounting the series of misfortune that led him there.

“A magnificent novella about miscommunication, bad decisions, and the anguish of an answered text. Told in deft and circuitous sentences, Reis flourishes in philosophical humor and the everyday, an obvious master of mixing the mundane with the profound. A perfect gem of a short novel."
—Mark Haber, author of Reinhardt's Garden and Saint Sebastian's Abyss

64 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2023

About the author

João Reis (1985) is a Portuguese writer and literary translator. His books are published in Portugal, the USA, Brazil, Serbia, Georgia, Egypt and Greece. He writes both in Portuguese and English.

The Translator's Bride was his first work to be translated into English, and his novel Bedraggling Grandma with Russian Snow was longlisted for the 2022 Dublin Literary Award.

He's also the author of The Devastation of Silence (longlisted for Prémio Oceanos 2019, published in English in November 2022), Quando Servi Gil Vicente (shortlisted for Prémio Fernando Namora 2020), Se com Pétalas ou Ossos (2021), Cadernos da Água (2022, shortlisted for Prémio Fernando Namora and Prémio Fundação Eça de Queiroz), and An Atavic Fear of Hailstorms (2023).

Reviews

[João Reis]

My latest novella. This one was originally written in English, so it's not a translation (just like Bedraggling Grandma with Russian Snow).

It comes out in July via Long Day Press, and you can already pre-order it!

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, am I really the first person to review this other than the author and the publisher? OK, well no pressure then!

When i picked this up from my local bookshop, the lady who'd ordered it for me said, rather worriedly "It's very small! Did you know it was very small?" and yes it's pretty small. If you need a big whacking leather-bound tome to throw at someone, I do not recommend this book.

I think it's my first time reading one of João Reis's books in English and my portuguese is pretty shonky, so I feel like I've read most of them through a glass darkly, but even so, i felt like I recognised the main character of this as similar to my idea of the protagonist of The Translator's Fiancée (or whatever the English version is called) He has a sort of distaste for other people, coupled with an obsession for a woman who he's at risk of losing, and he's railing against what's happened, trying to unstick himself and using all this very florid language in the process, and there's a sense of it being detached, very focused on the guy and his immediate situation, to the exclusion of all else. The fact that the author is writing in his... Second? Third? Eighth language? Actually accentuates this, I think. Don't get me wrong, it's not ungrammatical or anything, it's well written but there's something just a tiny bit off about it: the fact that it includes a couple of words (including one in the title) that I've never even seen written down before, the slightly odd repetition, the mix of US idioms. ("asshole", "motherfucker") with British ("cringe worthy" , "make an arse of himself") and things neither of those nationalities would recognise (like "kilometre" used to measure anything other than a park run) that make it hard to pin down who the guy is or where or when. If this were a detective novel, say, or a straightforward narrative like that, it'd be pretty distracting, but it's super-effective here, creating a sort of uncanny valley feel to the situation he finds himself in.

So yeah, grab yourself a copy of this tiny, tiny book. I recommend reading it surrounded by geese. It worked for me.

[Joshua Bohnsack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I published this. In the vain of Ducks, Newburyport, this novella is narrated by a man stuck in a hospital with an obnoxious acquaintance, thinking about the situation that brought him bedridden in that very room.

[Josh Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised on how easy I could pick up the book, how easy I could reemerge into the narrative. Reis’s patient narrator veers around his accident and mind rather fluidly and intensely. While I wish it was a bit longer, I find An Atavic Fear of Hailstorms a pleasant read.