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
A courageous and often shocking book about the plague of addiction. Yet Original Sins is written with a wild, brilliant humour that offsets the horror. Gripping, hilarious and unforgettable, this is an inspirational survivor's story -- Gabriel Byrne
A wildly original and gripping debut, told with humour and compassion, about what it means to survive -- Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness
Original Sins is a shattering portrait of addiction -- it's generously open, desperately honest and confronting. While it is heartbreaking, there is humour and compassion. It's a journey through darkness, against fear, to finding the light in oneself -- Catherine Cho, author of INFERNO
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
What a frightening and funny book, full of shocking, memorable scenes. I'm glad Matt Rowland Hill lived to tell the tale. -- Adam Foulds, author of Dream Sequence
Matt Rowland Hill has gone to the depths of himself and emerged with something unique, graceful, piercingly smart, and devilishly funny. Many books have been written about addiction. Original Sins is unlike all of them, and stands among the very best -- Rob Doyle, author of Here Are the Young Men
Matt Rowland Hill guides us to the edge of devastation, and doesn't flinch from the ache of addiction, family anguish and inward despair. But this is a book that's optimistic to the core, as honest about grief as it is about joy. I won't forget it -- Jessica J. Lee, author of Two Trees Make a Forest
Hill's surviving his journey through religious fundamentalism into hardcore drug addiction is an accomplishment. His writing this memoir--unflinching, heart-rending, funny, insightful as hell--is a triumph. This is a phenomenal book. -- Antoine Wilson, author of The Interloper
A scorching, relentless, absolutely essential read about the roots of addiction and what it takes to save yourself. Hill writes like he has nothing to lose, and like he was born to create this harrowing, utterly transfixing, beautifully wrought portrait of a young man tortured by the twin horrors of family and religion... To take that darkness and make a brilliant, forceful work of literature from it is the holiest alchemy -- Merritt Tierce, author of Love Me Back
Stunning... What most impressed me about this addiction memoir was its staunch refusal to become an addiction memoir, with the pat journey-into-the-abyss-and-out-again trajectory. Instead, Hill allows his story to be precisely what all of our stories are: a series of days, and hours, and moments in which we are given, over and over, the profound responsibility to choose life over death. -- Jamie Quatro, author of I Want To Show You More
Matt Rowland Hill's marvellous debut, by turns excruciatingly anguished and elatingly funny but always engrossing, is an essential experience for anyone interested in family dynamics, adolescence, class, psychology, theology, or English prose * Leo Robson *
[An] exquisite and unflinching debut... Combined with his stunning prose, his clever use of biblical metaphors... makes his story of salvation all the more affecting. In a sea of addiction memoirs, this stands out. * Publishers Weekly *
[ORIGINAL SINS is] remarkable-beautifully written and wonderfully insightful. Doubt and faith are twin themes that inform the captivating story and, without doubt, will also captivate readers of this extraordinary memoir. * Booklist *
