Original Sins: An extraordinary memoir of faith, family, shame and addiction

An extraordinarily brave memoir about faith, loss and addiction. 'Original Sins is one of the best books I've read this year, full of vivacity and honesty' Sunday Times Matt Rowland Hill grew up the son of a minister in an evangelical Christian church in south Wales and then south-east England. It was a childhood fraught with bitter family conflict and the fear of damnation. After a devastating loss of faith in his late teens, Matt began his search for salvation elsewhere, turning to books before developing a growing relationship with alcohol and drugs. He became addicted to crack and heroin in his early twenties, an ordeal that stretched over a decade and culminated in a period of hopeless darkness. Recklessly honest, and as funny as it is grave, Original Sins is an extraordinary memoir of faith, family, shame and addiction. But ultimately it is about looking for answers to life's big questions in all the wrong places, how hope can arrive in the most unexpected forms, and how the stories we tell might help us survive. 'Devastatingly good . . . I was blown away' Observer 'A stunningly well-written, funny, heartrending and utterly gripping memoir about learning how to live with who we are. Read it. Read it now' Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall 'Extraordinary' Geoff Dyer 'I tore through this brilliant, fearless book. From the first page to the last, it's funny, insightful and beautifully written' Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine