Rivka Galchen recieved her MD from the Mount Sinai Shool of Medicine, having spent a year in South America working on public health issues. Galchen recently completed her MFA at Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham Fellow. Her essay on the Many Worlds... More
An Interview with Rivka Galchen
Atmospheric Disturbances Book Trailer:
Rivka Galchen on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show:
Wall Street Journal feature on Rivka Galchen
Time Out New York feature on Rivka Galchen
New York Observer feature on Rivka Galchen
"Enthralling . . . Don't be surprised if this gives you a Crying of Lot 49 nostalgia hit."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Everything is other than it appears to be in Galchen's assured debut—an intricate puzzle powered by an urgently beating heart . . . A superb first novel."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Galchen has created a heart breaking puzzle of a novel. Hilarious and daring. The novel tracks the way we seek to destroy our most precious love affairs and, in doing so, our own sanity. The hero, Leo, is like a brilliant mad scientist trying to prove that the earth is flat, because he desperately needs a ledge high enough to jump off of." —Heather O’Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals
“Rivka Galchen has written a powerful novel about love, longing, Doppler radar, and the true appreciation of a nice cookie with your tea. Atmospheric Disturbances is fantastic.” —Nathan Englander, author of The Ministry of Special Cases
“Reader, you are holding in your hand one of my favorite novels ever: Rivka Galchen's divinely hilarious, heartbreaking tale of Leo's search for his "lost" wife Rema. This is a novel of Borgesian erudition, wit, and playfulness, though its obsessively pursued subject --as it rarely was in the Argentine's fiction - is love, the enraptured lover, and the mystery of the beloved, the intersection of love's fictions, realities, and pathologies. It is also as funny as any episode of the Simpsons (imagine Homer as a besotted and brilliant New York psychiatrist). The prose jumps with one astonishing observation, insight, and description after another. Atmospheric Disturbances delivers unforgettable joy.” —Francisco Goldman, author of The Divine Husband
“Erudite and chock-full of heartache, Rivka Galchen's virtuosic "debut" novel reads like the work of a cutting-edge literary alchemist who has created in her laboratory the Book of the Now. Part thriller, part romance, part autobiography, part psychological study, her book's sweetly skewed brilliance and stealth-bomb sadness will make you swoon with this realization: yes, these kinds of books are still possible.” —Heidi Julavits, author of The Uses of Enchantment
“…A droll, exquisite first novel…”—Laura Miller, Salon
1.1 MB
Found in: General Fiction
Visit our UK site
