A Kind of Intimacy

Annie moves into her new home bringing little else but her cat and a collection of cow-shaped milk jugs. She's hoping for a clean slate, but there's something familiar about her next door neighbour - she's convinced she's seen him somewhere before. Annie is morbidly obese, lonely and hopeful. She narrates her own increasingly bizarre attempts to ingratiate herself with her new neighbours, learn from past mistakes and achieve a 'certain kind of intimacy' with the boy next door. Undeterred by her target's hostile girlfriend, she searches for guidance by obsessively studying self-help literature and romance novels. Though Annie struggles to repress a murky history of violence, secrets and sexual mishaps her past is never too far behind her, finally shattering her denial in a compelling and bloody climax. A quirky, character driven and darkly comic debut in the tone of "Notes on A Scandal", "A Kind of Intimacy" is an offbeat and ironic study of misunderstandings. It traces the dark possibilities of best intentions going awry and gives an unsettling glimpse into a clumsy young woman who has too much in common with the rest of us to be written off as a monster.

ISBN 1906413398   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9781906413392 (What's this?)   Pages 282 Publisher Arcadia Books   Published in London Imprint Arcadia Books   Height (mm) 198 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 129 Publication date 04 Feb 2010   Academic level General DEWEY 823.92

'An intense and intriguing novel that never quite lets the reader get comfortable. It understands about the fuzzy boundary between the normal and the strange, and weaves them together in a gripping, ever-darkening narrative' Jenny Diski 'Being compared to Notes on a Scandal ... tipped by Waterstone's for literary success this year' Alison Flood, guardian.co.uk 'Annie is hugely fat and knows that she is not to everyone's taste, but is a minority interest, like collecting Stilton jarsA". We meet her as she is leaving her old life to start again in a new house. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Annie is weird. She tells ridiculous lies and develops an unhealthy obsession with the attractive young couple next door. This is not just a cry for help - it's a loud scream, and someone is bound to get hurt. Ashworth, who has worked as head librarian in a prison, evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell' - The Times 'A fine piece of spine-chilling literature. The abnormal Annie describes cringe worthy events, which are both bleakly humorous and utterly unsettling. Culminating with true dramatics, Jenn Ashworth paces her novel with a ruthless aptitude for leading the reader where you really don't want to go. Extremely intense and powerfully intriguing this novel has the power to cause many a sleepless night' - Waterstone's

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