Your steps on the stairs A novel

An American expat in Portugal obsessively prepares for his wife's arrival in this disquieting psychological suspense novel from Muñoz Molina (To Walk Alone in the Crowd). After being fired from his corporate job, the unnamed narrator packs up and sells the New York apartment he shares with his wife, neuroscientist Cecilia, and decamps to the couple's property in Lisbon. Climate change is accelerating, he reasons, and there's no better location from which to watch the world end. He hires a team to help transform their new residence into a replica of the old one and then settles in with his dog to wait for a cab to deliver Cecilia. The narrative unfolds in a woozy flow of first-person musings and reminiscences, making it difficult to gauge time's passing, but the more books the narrator reads and the more calls he dodges, the more questions arise surrounding Cecilia's continued absence. Anxiety and dread mount steadily, while elegiac prose and eccentric supporting characters amplify the story's surrealism straight through to the sucker-punch ending. It's a stunning blend of mystery and literary fever dream. Agent: Jeffrey Posternak, Wylie Agency. (Apr.)