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A review by lauramariani
Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
4.0
I genuinely enjoyed this first novel from Rivka Galchen. Her unreliable narrator takes us on a strange journey through meteorology, psychiatry, pastry, and dog-walking, but the real premise of the story is very simple -- he's looking for love in all the wrong places. We can interpret his plight in a clinical way -- Leo's experiences evoke Capgras' syndrome, which Dr. Galchen surely learned about in her medical training, in which people believe that their loved ones have been replaced by imposters -- or as an extreme form of the pain that we all suffer as our loved ones grow and change through their lives, sometimes moving apart from us.
Galchen makes some clever turns of phrase, and although they can come off as unnatural, it's hard to be sure whether that represents the awkwardness of the narrator or the showiness of the author. Either way, she kept me reading. My main complaint is that she's trying a bit too hard to be like Thomas Pynchon (I mean, look at that big "49" on the cover!), but there are worse writers to emulate.
Galchen makes some clever turns of phrase, and although they can come off as unnatural, it's hard to be sure whether that represents the awkwardness of the narrator or the showiness of the author. Either way, she kept me reading. My main complaint is that she's trying a bit too hard to be like Thomas Pynchon (I mean, look at that big "49" on the cover!), but there are worse writers to emulate.