Overstaying

In Swiss writer Koch’s bewitching debut, a woman’s isolated existence is upended by the arrival of a strange being. The unnamed narrator lives alone in the small mountain village where she grew up. One fateful day, she locks eyes with “the visitor” on a train platform. The newcomer is only glancingly described: he has claws, wears a poncho, and his hair juts out “in hedgehog fashion.” She invites him home, and for a while, the two fall into a comfortable domestic rhythm despite not speaking the same language (“One thing I liked about the visitor was that I never knew if he could actually understand me”). Eventually, however, the narrator wonders whether the visitor will ever leave, and questions whether she truly accepts his presence. Told in swirling, disorienting fragments, the narration is sometimes funny (“I’ve never said I’m proud of how wicked I am. And yet I must admit I’ve come to terms with it relatively quickly”), sometimes lightly ominous (“During the night, once the visitor falls into his nightmarish sleep, I will measure the width of his bite”), and consistently sharp. Fans of dreamy and mysterious fiction like Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond will devour this. (Sept.)