Edith's diary (1977)

Edith's husband leaves, but his elderly uncle and their troubled son remain her responsibility. Her diary develops an increasingly successful version of life while the practical one becomes harder to sustain. Highsmith makes the unequal allocation of care central to Edith's isolation, rather than a few background chores. This is a slow, deeply bleak psychological chiller for readers who want to notice how abandonment can be disguised as everyone else's ordinary expectations.