Your Steps on the Stairs

A Novel

By: Antonio Muñoz Molina, Curtis Bauer - translator

Narrated by: Robert Fass

A couple's new life in Lisbon unravels in this heady and unsettling psychological thriller from one of Spain's most celebrated writers.

A man travels to Lisbon ahead of his wife to prepare their new home, while she stays in New York to oversee a research project on the neuroscience of memory and fear. Leaving behind a phase of their relationship indelibly marked by 9/11, the man revels in the Portuguese capital's temperate weather and the neighborhood's calmness, meticulously planning the details of their future.

Yet beneath the peace and quiet of this routine, he feels a growing unease he can't explain. Is it the similarity between the two cities, and the two apartments? A mysterious threat waiting in the wings?

A brilliant, deceptively simple novel of psychological suspense, Your Steps on the Stairs explores how our emotions and memories shape our perception of reality. With his subtle, masterful style, Antonio Muñoz Molina lays bare the fragility of the stories we so carefully craft about ourselves.

©2019 Antonio Munoz Molina and Editorial Planeta, S.A.; Translation copyright 2025 by Curtis Bauer (P)2025 Tantor Media

You’ll be disappointed if you are looking for a thriller

The New York Times reviewed this book in its thriller column, which I think was a mistake. It may have raised people’s expectations for what is actually a very thought-provoking novel. It is intentionally disorienting and a slow burn but also hard to look away from even when it seems to be going nowhere.

Disappointing

I had looked forward to the release of this title as an audiobook. I love reading about Portugal! Your Steps on the Stairs is well written and well performed. I particular enjoyed the author's descriptions of Lisbon and what it is like to live there. But the plot goes nowhere. And 6 or 7 hours of a story that goes nowhere is not suspenseful. Rather, it is frustrating and tedious. I will not say that Your Steps on the Stairs is a waste of a credit. I do so enjoy anything relating to Portugal. But unless you love the country as much as I do or unless you love stories whose mysteries are never, ever solved, listen to something else.

Not for me

I understand it’s a psychological drama but the lack of action and next to no dialogue made it so slow, I just wanted it to be over. There was no exciting or shocking twist as some reviews have mentioned. It was somewhat depressing. Just not for me. Even listening to at 2.0 I couldn’t get done fast enough.

Boring

How this ended up on a NYT best books list, I will never be able to understand