Hello, I'm Megan O'Rourke, Slate's Culture Critic.

Joining me today for our audio book club are Troy Patterson, Slate's TV critic.

Hello, Troy.

Hello.

And Katie Roofy, NYU professor and culture critic herself.

Hello, Katie.

Hi. Hi.

Hi.

Today we are discussing Rivka Galchin's atmospheric disturbances, a first novel that we were all just saying is a very satisfying object to have and hold.

It sort of has nice, thick pages.

But first, a word from our sponsor, which is audible.com, the leading provider of spoken word entertainment on the web.

We have a special offer.

If you go to www.audiblepodcast.com slash slate, you can sign up for a two-week trial and get a free audiobook.

And if you cancel your subscription within that

period, you can keep the book. How generous. The book we're about to discuss atmospheric

disturbances is available at Audible. Once again, that URL is www.audiblepodcast.com slash

slate. It's the story of a psychiatrist named Leo Liebenstein, who wakes up one day to find that his wife, Rima, has been replaced by Asimulacrum, who resembles her in almost all ways, has the same corn, silk, blonde hair, but is different in very key ways that Leo is attuned to and enumerates throughout

the book. He sets off to find her on a rather pickeresque journey, which brings him both to

Buenos Aires and to Patagonia. And along the way, encounters a number of interesting characters,

one of them, a former patient named Harvey.

And just to get us started talking about the book, the book is at once kind of postmodern and tricksy and playful,

and it seems to have a lot of the tools of the postmodern playbook.

...