Mrs. Bridge by Evan Connell

This funny and sensitive book brings to life an underrepresented character – the alienated upper-middle-class housewife, passing from youth to old age in the post WWII America of the 1950's.  Her views on the inevitability of racial prejudice speaks to the structural racism highlighted in protests in the streets today.
Right from the get go Mrs Bridge is slightly at odds with her situation. She is a bit at odds with her family of origin, not quite getting that her role is to marry and raise children.  She rises to that occasion, but is disappointed when her wealthy, hard-working husband, Walter, doesn't appear to feel any great passion towards her; her early hope that the long hours he spends at the office are temporary are soon dashed. She tries her best, always concerned about the eyes that are upon her, never wanting to make trouble for anyone else, ensuring her children are cared for and that she puts up neither too many nor too few Christmas decorations, for fear of being judged. In everything she does, though, there is just a tinge of disenfranchisement; a feeling of absence.  It is a strangely engaging book about a distant woman.