Matt Rowland Hill

Electric...artfully structured...with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

A beautifully controlled tale of a life spiralling out of control...Original Sins is one of the best books I've read this year, full of vivacity and honesty...To carve such an entertaining and beautifully paced story from such depths of misery suggests a writer of immense gifts

This book is brilliant. The writing shimmers off the page

[Hill] deploys dark wit and needle-sharp insight to describe how he swapped a love of Jesus for a love of class-A drugs... devastatingly good... I was blown away

Ignore, for a moment, the unignorable facts of Matt Rowland Hill's life. Ultimately it's the novelistic virtues of vivid scene-making, fully realised characterisation and psychological subtlety that make Original Sins such an extraordinary book

really very good...Hill has a light descriptive touch, but when he aims at poetry, he hits it... Hill's command of tone - his ability to glide beautifully between comedy and horror - has made us trust him happily

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 wildly original and gripping debut, told with humour and compassion, about what it means to survive

Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness

What a frightening and funny book, full of shocking, memorable scenes. I'm glad Matt Rowland Hill lived to tell the tale

I tore through this brilliant, fearless book. From the first page to the last, it's funny, insightful and beautifully written

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

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

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

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

Original Sins is a wonderful, shimmering book; a tonal triumph that shifts nimbly between funny, poignant, sly and direct. More than that, within its propulsive, psychologically honest pages, is a genuine wisdom

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

A brutally honest reflection on family faith and addition

Matt Rowland Hill writes so beautifully and with such intelligence and precision, such elegance and control, that really, I'd happily read his thoughts on the most mundane of matters. But Original Sins is certainly not that. It's a startlingly candid memoir of addiction, faith, loss, family, anguish, despair, hope, love. It's simultaneously devastating and genuinely funny, and a reading experience of the highest order

Hill is an engaging and reliable narrator of his own chaotic downfall, with plenty of charm to medicate the horror... his account is both eloquent and heartfelt

Beautifully written... searing, angry and comic

Harrowing but excruciatingly funny

[A] blazing debut... Electric from page one

Scabrously funny... Were his account a novel, you might accuse it of being too far-fetched

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

Original Sins is a memoir that reads like a novel; a brilliant one. Matt Rowland Hill's struggle to overcome the perfect storm of his upbringing and addiction makes for a great story, but it's the blend of artistry, wit and skilfully timed stabs of brutality that make it such a vivid and thrilling experience. It's not that I didn't want to put the book down, more that it wouldn't release me from its grip

Brilliant... lively, engaging and extremely well written - scrupulously, painfully honest... sharply funny

An extraordinary memoir of faith, family, shame and addiction

An extraordinarily brave memoir about faith, family, shame and addiction - an Observer, New Statesman and Sunday Times Book of the Year 
 
'Brilliant... lively, engaging and extremely well written - scrupulously, painfully honest... sharply funny' PANDORA SYKES, SUBSTACK 
 
 
Matt Rowland Hill grew up the son of a minister in an evangelical Christian church. 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, eventually becoming addicted to crack and heroin - 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. It's 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. 
 
'Remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written... Brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing' The Times 
 
'Electric... Artfully structured with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent' Observer 
 
'A beautifully controlled tale of a life spiralling out of control... One of the best books I've read this year' Sunday Times 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE AND WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Matt Rowland Hill

Praise for Original Sins

Electric...artfully structured...with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

A beautifully controlled tale of a life spiralling out of control...Original Sins is one of the best books I've read this year, full of vivacity and honesty...To carve such an entertaining and beautifu ...

Electric...artfully structured...with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

A beautifully controlled tale of a life spiralling out of control...Original Sins is one of the best books I've read this year, full of vivacity and honesty...To carve such an entertaining and beautifu ...

Electric...artfully structured...with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

A beautifully controlled tale of a life spiralling out of control...Original Sins is one of the best books I've read this year, full of vivacity and honesty...To carve such an entertaining and beautifu ...

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter