It’s a lot! If she quit her job, perhaps “everything would return to normal,” but normal would be nothing more than greasy sausage and bad TV. A guest suffers the death of her son from stomach cancer. In fact, she begins to think her room has “some magical power that enabled the dreamscapes to ascend the stairs to invade her head.” A member of the Brazilian delegation staying in the hotel dreams of crocodiles.

Her dreams are overtaken by the apparent dreams of hotel workers and guests. The woman’s nights are a little more interesting.

“She wasn’t even allowed to add a splash of olive oil to the pan to brighten the dish,” Elvira Navarro writes in “The Top Floor,” a standout story in the Spanish novelist’s haunting new collection, “ Rabbit Island.” “Her features were so average, so unremarkable, that, on the rare occasion when she left the kitchen, the guests never noticed that a living being was crossing the dining room.” In the kitchen of a dowdy hotel in Spain, a woman cooks uninspired dishes for strangers, her salary barely covering room and board and her employer just as chintzy with the restaurant’s ingredients. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. By Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney

The rabbit was brave in spanish