Roth

"The profusion of stars told him unambiguously that he was doomed to die, and the thunder of the sea only yards away—and the nightmare of the blackest blackness beneath the frenzy of the water—made him want to run from the menace of oblivion in their cozy, lighted, underfurnished house."

Philip Roth is still alive, and while his book "Everyman" is in my view his best since Portnoys Complaint his persistence gives hope he will better it yet. It's been half a century since he began writing and still no one else grasps that arena of queasy emotionality. He discussed it on NPR back in 2006.