New York - May 27, 2008

The Perfect Storm

“Atmospheric Disturbances,” by Rivka Galchen

The weather report: cloudy skies and rain — with a touch of complete delusion. And that’s not just because you’re back at work after a minibreak.

Today marks the debut of Rivka Galchen’s novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, a meteorology-infused tale of love, insanity, and the relationship between the two.

Narrator Leo Liebenstein, a tightly wound New York psychiatrist, is greeted at his apartment by a woman posing as his wife, Rema. Although the supposed simulacrum resembles her in every way, he’s determined to find the real Rema. During his manic search across the globe, he encounters Tzvi Gal-Chen, a distinguished member of the Royal Academy of Meteorology, whose work studying the Doppler effect further fuels Leo’s figments.

Galchen, who holds an M.D. in psychiatry and is the daughter of a meteorologist, is no doubt writing from personal experience — making for a poignant, and at times deeply sad, story of a man’s failure to reconcile with reality.

It’s a storm worth weathering.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.