There comes a time in every marriage when you realize that your spouse is in many ways not the same person that you fell in love with and married. Debut novelist Rivka Galchen takes this symptom of impermanence to its logical extreme in "Atmospheric Disturbances", with a protagonist, Dr. Leo Liebenstein, who believes that his wife has been replaced by an impostor. This conceit works magnificently, as the rupture in the Liebensteins' marriage bursts from the page like a sliced-in-half orange popped open by inverted peel, with all the juicy bits sticking out. For Galchen, the juiciest parts of intimacy are the little things, the shampoo-laced scent of hair, the tidal shifts of a partner's moods. Reading Galchen, one is convinced that intimacy is nothing other than the constant sharing of a thousand of these little details per second. One is also convinced that if enough of a couple's details begin to diverge, whether from madness or just a dull drifting, then the thread of intimacy is lost. And this unraveling, as in the case of Dr. Leo Liebenstein, leaves us at our most vulnerable. Galchen gives new meaning to that classic rock cliche "love the one you're with," i.e. intimacy is all that prevents your wife from becoming a complete stranger, which is just a short step from a total collapse of meaning, a dangerous line straddled by Dr. Leo Liebenstein. Galchen is riveting in her debut. Highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment