The Loft. Marlen Haushofer

A 1960s Austrian housewife is forced to re-examine her past when pages from old diaries begin to arrive mysteriously in the letter box at her family home. Each day after the windows are clean and the baking is done, she forces herself to read and burn the evidence of her troubled youth. The Loft, published shortly before Haushofer's death in 1970, explores the anatomy of a desiccated marriage, the power of solitude, and the failure of Austrian society in the aftermath of Nazism. Like Haushofer's cult feminist classic The Wall, The Loft is a disturbing and ultimately uplifting tale of alienation, survival, and of finding joy in the strangest of places.