A Kind of Intimacy — Jenn Ashworth

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.