No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is the most visceral depiction of autistic alienation I've ever read.

I bought the book on a lark and and it shook me to my core. This may just be relatable to me. I've never spoken about this book with another autistic person, but this is so much of my painful autism experience that I've never been able to put into words.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

The specific way Yozo doesn't understand people and how he tries to cope with that is so painfully familiar.

The first experience that shook me is when his father asks what he wants during a trip and Yozo doesn't really want anything. He actually doesn't want anything and is quickly overcome by the terror that Something is wrong when his father looks annoyed. Yozo spirals into thinking that he should know what to want; He should say something that most kids his age would want like a tiger mask. His brother just suggests a book and from it's clear that it's not a big deal, but to Yozo this is earth shattering because his mind is stuck on this mindless terror of a social faux pas that he feels that he made. He feels that he's done something namelessly wrong. Yozo thinks he needs to quickly cover it up by sneaking into his fathers study and altering it from the book to the tiger mask and then spirals further because he feels like he's committed some crime by not being able to give the "correct" answer in the first place. His fear only ends when his father thinks it's funny that Yozo went through all that trouble. To the father, it was just silly kid stuff. To Yozo, his father thinking that his actions are silly rather than odd and then that humor feels perfect to solve these new problems he's feeling so he bases his entire personality around it being a Clown.

From then on is the most real depiction of masking that I've ever read. I'd have to write a paper on it to fully pick it apart, but I'd rather not. I cannot rec this enough.