Description

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In Annie Fairhurst's world, the persistent exhortation to better oneself regularly moves her to embark on thoroughly terrifying journeys.

After an attempt at marriage and motherhood, Annie is obese, socially awkward, yet determined to escape a difficult past and to start over. She moves into a new neighborhood, bringing virtually nothing from her previous life with her. Then again, there is very little of her previous life left to bring. She has wiped the slate clean.

Neil, Annie's unsuspecting new neighbor, makes the mistake of being friendly and, convinced his friendliness indicates that he is enamored of her, Annie's bizzare behavior escalates from petulant to, finally, criminal. All the while, Annie is convinced that she is the one to whom life has dealt a foul hand, that she is the real victim. As the persona she has so meticulously created begins to crumble, a bloody and disastrous finale seems inevitable.

Told by a narrator as easy to fall for as she is difficult to believe, A Kind of Intimacy is a sardonic look at self-help gone disastrously wrong.

About the Author

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Jenn Ashworth studied English at Cambridge University and Creative Writing at Manchester. In 2006 an exract from A Kind of Intimacy was short-listed in a national competition entitled "The Enigma of Personality."

In 2009 she left her job as a prison librarian in order to work on her second novel. You can read her award-winning blog at www.jennashworth.co.uk

Praise For…

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Praise for A Kind of Intimacy

"The beautiful, provocative prose and dangerous, quirky protagnoist mark Ashworth as a writer to watch."
—Publishers Weekly

"An impresive debut that will remind some of the work of Patirica Highsmith. A nasty, but tough-to-put-down portrait of a sociopath."
—Kirkus

"Annie's distincitive voice becomes so intimate that, while we laugh and condemn, the uncomfortable knowledge dawns that there might be a potential Annie in us all as she teaches us 'how human beings need gentleness.'"
—The Independent

"One day you're in clover; the next Annie has moved in next door and all hell's broken out. Annie brings a vast collection of grudges, superhuman mendacity and a trove of well-thumbed self-help manuals with her. These furnish her with what she sees as impeccable social 'skills,' dilligently misapplied to every unsuspecting community she colonizes."
—The Guardian

"Annie Fairhurst bears a resemblance to Stephen King's Annie Wilkes (from Misery)... God help you if Annie moves in next door!"
—Politico (Ireland)