In Rivka Galchen's novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, Dr. Leo Liebenstein is a therapist who one day begins to think that his wife, Rema, is a subsitute for the real Rema he married. His derangement--or is he deranged?--leads him to consult a weather expert, a member of the Royal Academy of Meteorology, whose name, Tzvi Gal-Chen, just happens to bear a striking resemblance to the author's. Leo's quest to find out what has happened to his "real" wife transports him to Patagonia and places him in the middle of the mysterious and cosmic conflict between the Royal Academy and the 49 Quantum Fathers. No, the echo of Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 is not accidental in this first novel that is part mystery, part psychiatric case study, part love story, part House of Mirrors.