07/09/08
Text: Scott Indrisek
Rivka Galchen’s debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, has earned accolades everywhere from The Believer to The Economist. It’s the story of Leo Libenstein, a middle-aged psychologist who becomes convinced that his wife has been replaced by a look-alike imposter. (Others have pointed out that this mirrors an actual phenomena, known as Capgras Syndrome). Galchen uses the surreal plot—which includes feverish trips to South America and philosophical ruminations on weather patterns—to depict a marriage in crisis. Anthem spoke to her about the novel, which you can purchase here. (And keep an eye out for original short fiction from Rivka Galchen in our fall issue.)
Obviously the narrator of a work of fiction shouldn't be mistaken for the author—but what made it easier for you to tell this story through the voice of an older man?
I guess I’ve always been jealous of certain men I know for speaking so confidently, so authoritatively; I find their assuredness incredibly appealing, and yet also kind of absurd. So to write in that kind of voice—well, it made for a project of love, of fantasy, and of, I dunno, revenge? Kinder than revenge, but in that family.
But also, I really do feel that the person I have the least epistemological access to—the person I 'get' the least—is myself. Even just hearing my voice in a phone message, I think, 'my God, is that me?' And I think this is generally true—that it’s a mistake to think we’re experts on ourselves. Even in my very favorite 'memoirs' and 'confessions'—well, I don’t love even Rousseau or Augustine because I think: this person can really tell me the truth about him or herself. It’s more like: wow, what a through-the-glass-darkly reading experience this is, I love watching this brilliant person obfuscate certain obvious insights from themselves, even while engaged in the very project of examining themselves. I love the sound of someone protesting way too much. Warped perspective is my favorite—and to me the only credible—perspective. So that’s both why I wanted to write in first person, and why I thought I’d be more in control if that first person were very ‘not me,’ so that I’d at least have a chance of knowing something narrator didn't.
What level of research did you undertake for the 'technical' side of the novel? You have a medical degree; how much did you glean from your own medical background?
Well, naturally I read this, that, the other, but I was more interested in how my narrator sees himself, than how, say, an outsider (medical or otherwise) would see him. I just really wanted the sound of someone converting ordinary sadness into hysterical pain. Of someone constructing a perhaps less plausible but certainly more interesting explanation for how they felt. And for that kind of 'craziness'—well I’ve been in love, and that’s probably the most important "research." Anyone who has been in love knows what it’s like to have unbeckoned thoughts intruding into consciousness... and knows what it’s like to genuinely wonder whether love is inebriation, or whether, in fact, it’s a rare experience of true vision.
What's on your current reading list, and have you started work on your next project yet?
I have the proverbial toe in the next novel, but it’s still a stranger to me, so I’m not much for describing it, (though I nevertheless like to think of everything I read as “research” for it, even as I don’t really know what ‘it’ is.) Regardless, I’ve been re-reading Peter Carey and Marilynne Robinson. And something about summer has put me in a languid, tome-y mood, so I’m going back to Rabelais, to the Bible, to Dante, and to William James, a favorite.
