Atmospheric Disturbances: A Greater Allegory for Growing Disconnected From the One You Love Genna Rivieccio
T
o most, Rivka Galchen’s debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, is a straightforward enough tale about a copy of something so easily replacing the original without anyone else being able to detect it. The image of Saddam Hussein’s many body doubles somehow comes to mind. And yes, there’s plenty of symbolism to this notion of false equivalents in a century when the synthetic is overly encouraged rather than accordingly maligned. In this case, the carbon copy is of Leo Liebenstein’s wife, Rema, an Argentinian woman much younger
than Leo’s own fifty-one years. In his post as psychiatrist (aren’t all the mad ones psychiatrists?), Leo is especially attuned to psychosis, chiefly “Remabased psychosis,” which is what convinces him that the “ersatz” woman he sees before him one day is not truly his wife. Along with the aid of Harvey, one of his more crackpot patients—or who he formerly thought was a crackpot patient before coming to see his side of things—and Tzvi Gal-Chen (not a coincidence that it’s barely differentiated from Rivka’s own last name), a dead meteorologist with ties to the Royal Academy
83.
