First, a bit of a prelude (because those are always fun, right?). I generally prefer to provide feedback on novelists who, you know, are still alive, directly. With the exceptions of bazillion-selling Oprah's book-club authors like Franzen or Morrison, it's surprisingly easy to get direct access to even fairly successful authors and academics. I've dropped lines to Luis Rodriguez for his excellent zeitgeist of latino LA short story collection The Republic of East LA, and more recently Charles Bock, for his even more excellent zeitgeist of modern Las Vegas, Beautiful Children, among a few others over the years (these two stand out for their quality). The market for literary fiction books is generally small enough that fan-author connections are still possible, unlike most other medias. Yet some authors, including Ms. Galchen here, for whatever reason (I imagine in her case, a few too many email addresses to keep track of) don't have a big flaming "Contact Me!" button on their websites.
The point of this maligned prologue? Simply that this review might be a little harsh. When I tend to contact these still-living authors, I essentially write to them an abbreviated version of the review that would otherwise appear here. Except it's nicer. Because, I mean, you're saying it right to their faces. The tone definitely moves from criticism of skill to criticism of work, which is probably fairer (at least less Ad Hominem) and in many cases more indicative of where fault actually lies (lays? Yes, I'm a critic who never took the time to learn that freaking rule. I'm going with lies). So if you bump into Ms. Galchen on the street somewhere and she complains to you about this one jackass of an internet critic who put down her book that's won numerous awards, let her know it's nothing personal. Just put a "Contact Me!" button on your site.
Now onto the book. Ms. Galchen has crafted quite an interesting collection of words. I purposely don't say "story", because, like many pieces of literary fiction, plot is not the primary concern in this novel. It's quite simplistic, and relatively little actually happens within the course of the book. Don't let that put you off however, the book is a fantastic read. While it may be read as part mystery or thriller (and it does contain elements of those genres), it's not a dedicated page turner a la Dan Brown. Twists and turns come suddenly and sparingly, and just often enough to keep you going. The short chapters (none longer than about seven pages or so, many coming in at just two pages) also aid in making the story manageable as well as an excellent bus-ride-home read.
The true strength of Atmospheric Disturbances though, is the unparalleled access the reader is given to the narrator and protagonist, Leo Liebenstein. Specifically to the world he gradually drapes over the reader, pulling them into his highly personalized, highly developed, and highly addictive psychosis. If you've ever wondered just how insanely logical and well reasoned a worldview separated from the consensus worldview (ie. a crazy person's take on the world) can be, read this book. It is a masterful dive into mental illness and serves as the source for those same mystery/thriller aspects of the novel, as the "mystery" is concocted entirely in Leo's mind. The strength of this immersion is also furthered by the nature of Leo's work. As a psychiatrist well-versed in the vocabulary of the mental health community, the narrator's imaginary search for truth is littered with transference, Oedipus complexes, psychiatrist vs. analyst bickering, and numerous other psycho-babble I probably didn't even pick up on. It's a ridiculously immersive ride from New York to Argentina, and most of that immersion stems from the strong writing that Galchen exhibits via her main character.
But it's not just the prose itself that showcase Galchen's obvious talents. Essentially a story of two characters, narrator Leo and his wife Rema, the dedication shown to Rema's character is almost as evident as with Leo. As an American immigrant, Rema's English is prone to certain playful rearrangements of idioms and common phrases, and Leo finds himself falling prey to the use of them the more time he spends with her. As a reader, too, you are gradually exposed, unannounced, to these slightly off phrases as they work their way into Leo's own writing. It's a beautiful and very delicate touch that's applied liberally and accurately throughout the book, as you slowly realize just how much Rema has infused herself into Leo's person - the strongest mark of a real relationship I can think of. All the other small details of her character, like the way she drinks her tea and her indifference towards canines, are dutifully brought out as appropriate, making her in every way except direct voice an equal in Leo's frantic journey.
The crux of that journey lies in Galchen's combination of her own father's science, meteorology, with the telling of Leo and Rema's relationship. The relationship = weather metaphor infests every corner of the novel, as Leo continually seeks to understand the present and future states of his love life by relating them to the unpredictable nature of weather. If Leo's voice is the centre of the story and Rema the planet that orbits tightly, that central metaphor is the gravity pulling them together then swinging them apart. Mixed in liberally with a dose of Pynchon-esque postmodernity, weather constitutes both the driving force behind many of the plot twists, and the fixation of Leo's increasingly fractured mind.
Perhaps the most daring technique Ms. Galchen used in the course of the novel though, was the weaving of autobiography into the text. The meteorologist who provides Leo with his background information is none other than Tzvi Gal-Chen, the author's own father, who died in the mid 1990's. Tzvi becomes one of the many characters drawn into Leo's disturbed web of meaning, and his research into doppler effects and current state measurement drives Leo towards his many otherwise incoherent actions. While the purpose of including Tzvi as a central character is not immediately clear, there is a sense of autobiography in this. Ms. Galchen, on top of being one of the New Yorker's 20 best writers under 40, is also a Mount Sinai medical school graduate who, like her protagonist Leo, specialized in psychiatry (don't you just love over-achievers?). Though I couldn't determine an exact purpose for all these autobiographical clues being brought together, I did extract a sense that Leo, by diving into Tzvi's research, was in some respect standing in for Ms. Galchen, trying to grow closer to her father, gradually moving away from an ability to diagnose the mentally ill, and submersing into meteorology, which, in this novel, is really a stand-in for matters of the heart.
It is a ballsy maneuver, and one which, short of a complete re-read of the novel, would require much more analysis than I can provide here. Some, including the original New Yorker review, were especially taken with this aspect of the novel. I found it neither wasteful nor inspired. For me, it was simply there. Perhaps I read too little into it, or missed some of the clues that were out there, waiting to be read, but ultimately I didn't feel strongly about it.
But it's not just the prose itself that showcase Galchen's obvious talents. Essentially a story of two characters, narrator Leo and his wife Rema, the dedication shown to Rema's character is almost as evident as with Leo. As an American immigrant, Rema's English is prone to certain playful rearrangements of idioms and common phrases, and Leo finds himself falling prey to the use of them the more time he spends with her. As a reader, too, you are gradually exposed, unannounced, to these slightly off phrases as they work their way into Leo's own writing. It's a beautiful and very delicate touch that's applied liberally and accurately throughout the book, as you slowly realize just how much Rema has infused herself into Leo's person - the strongest mark of a real relationship I can think of. All the other small details of her character, like the way she drinks her tea and her indifference towards canines, are dutifully brought out as appropriate, making her in every way except direct voice an equal in Leo's frantic journey.
The crux of that journey lies in Galchen's combination of her own father's science, meteorology, with the telling of Leo and Rema's relationship. The relationship = weather metaphor infests every corner of the novel, as Leo continually seeks to understand the present and future states of his love life by relating them to the unpredictable nature of weather. If Leo's voice is the centre of the story and Rema the planet that orbits tightly, that central metaphor is the gravity pulling them together then swinging them apart. Mixed in liberally with a dose of Pynchon-esque postmodernity, weather constitutes both the driving force behind many of the plot twists, and the fixation of Leo's increasingly fractured mind.
Perhaps the most daring technique Ms. Galchen used in the course of the novel though, was the weaving of autobiography into the text. The meteorologist who provides Leo with his background information is none other than Tzvi Gal-Chen, the author's own father, who died in the mid 1990's. Tzvi becomes one of the many characters drawn into Leo's disturbed web of meaning, and his research into doppler effects and current state measurement drives Leo towards his many otherwise incoherent actions. While the purpose of including Tzvi as a central character is not immediately clear, there is a sense of autobiography in this. Ms. Galchen, on top of being one of the New Yorker's 20 best writers under 40, is also a Mount Sinai medical school graduate who, like her protagonist Leo, specialized in psychiatry (don't you just love over-achievers?). Though I couldn't determine an exact purpose for all these autobiographical clues being brought together, I did extract a sense that Leo, by diving into Tzvi's research, was in some respect standing in for Ms. Galchen, trying to grow closer to her father, gradually moving away from an ability to diagnose the mentally ill, and submersing into meteorology, which, in this novel, is really a stand-in for matters of the heart.
It is a ballsy maneuver, and one which, short of a complete re-read of the novel, would require much more analysis than I can provide here. Some, including the original New Yorker review, were especially taken with this aspect of the novel. I found it neither wasteful nor inspired. For me, it was simply there. Perhaps I read too little into it, or missed some of the clues that were out there, waiting to be read, but ultimately I didn't feel strongly about it.
Now usually, as I get near the end of a book and begin to think of what would go into a review of it, the one question I always pose is, "Who did the author write this book for?" In my opinion, knowing whether you are the designed reader can influence your understanding of any work. Usually the answer is fairly clear, but this time I had a difficult time. It is a little too small in scale and character to appeal to fans of pulp, too smart and apolitical to appeal to most modern literary fiction sensibilities, and not really autobiographical enough to appeal to fans of that genre. I was truly stumped. Eventually I found an answer on the back of the hardcover copy I'd taken out from my local library. All three sets of praise plastered on the back were from other writers. And truly as an aspiring (read: unpublished) writer myself, this book most appealed to that aspect of myself. The skill, techniques, and dedication to truly immerse oneself into a head that fucked up, to describe with such dedication and detail the intricacies of a relationship as fleshed out as Leo and Rema's, well, that's the kind of writing that other writers salivate over. But as a reader, it still left me unfulfilled.
As a reader I wanted the physical journey to matter a bit more. As interesting as the descent into a worldview disparate from that of the majority consensus was, a recovery from that view and back into the real would have been truly spellbinding. I wanted sanity to be laced somewhere in Leo's journey, because otherwise all it was was essentially one giant talk therapy session. Again, the intended ambiguity of Leo's insane voice means that maybe that was the whole point, that maybe, like the weather, setting an "end point" at which resolution is achieved, is an unrealistic expectation. If the central metaphor of relationships = meteorology is the whole point, then how is weather supposed to heal? When does weather ever really make sense? At what point does trying to extract meaning out of chaos become useless?
Even as I write it, I can't help but think that a journey out of psychosis sounds horribly Hollywood, horribly blase and predictable. But I still want it. I want Rema to pull Leo out of his mindset in a passionate display of the power of love. That would be the epitome of Hollywood, the epitome of Hemingway and his love for an affirmation of the positive spirit of man. I don't want to get into a whole discussion of the artistic merit of pulling a Hollywood and displaying the world (and in this case, one aspect - mental illness) as we want it to be, versus displaying it as it really is (I doubt a mental disorder as powerful as what affects Leo is likely something someone recovers from easily, if ever fully). This is not the place for such a discussion. All I know is that the minute after putting this book down, all I could think of was the potential it had for illuminating not just the depths of self-imposed mental loss, but the joys associated with overcoming that same loss. Even just pulling a quick Catcher in the Rye and having the novel itself be Leo's writing therapy for his psychoanalyst would have been a nice touch. And really, given the excess of mental health practitioners in this novel, the most unrealistic thing I can imagine is that Leo would fail to undergo treatment of some sort.
And really, that was what upset me the most about this novel. The first twenty or so pages had me so deeply enthralled with the possibilities that Galchen's eventual path of postmodern lack of meaning out of the whole thing was more than a little disappointing. All the pieces were in place, the entire autobiographical aspect prepared for insertion into the midst of an emotional climax. Instead, it merely fizzles. Still, the writing is so strong, and Galchen's talent so obvious, I couldn't help but enjoy the book. Loving it, as the book makes clear, would have required just the right atmospheric confluences, and the weather just wasn't right.
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