Fiction January 1, 1

An unprovable theory: Before everything, before finishing her first book, even, a writer makes a certain, unique sound. Perhaps this means that the writer hears a certain sound or is tuned to a certain pitch. That sound can’t be faked or changed; it may be that the difference between writers who fulfill their promise and writers who don’t is that, no matter what they do, those who do just can’t help themselves—they make the sound they make and no other. In her first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen is clearly tuned, preternaturally, to the key of Auster, Borges, and perhaps