Original Sins: A Memoir (Original)

"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 humor 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."--Adam Foulds, author of The Quickening Maze

"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 and Turning

"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: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness

"A cross between Junky and Crossroads. Matt Rowland Hill does an exceptional job delineating the horror of shame-based parenting."--Nell Zink, National Book Award-nominated author of Mislaid

"[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 STARRED review

"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, STARRED review

"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. I found Matt Rowland Hill's story inspirational. A survivor's story that's gripping, hilarious and unforgettable." --Gabriel Byrne, actor and author of Walking with Ghosts

"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."--Antione Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth

"Matt Rowland Hill has gone to 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 Autobibliography and Threshold

"This book is 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. I couldn't put it down and when I finished reading, I realized I've been waiting for someone to tell the brutal truth about all this. To go all the way into the deepest dark of it, to break my heart in exactly this terrifying way. To take that darkness and make a brilliant, forceful work of literature from it is the holiest alchemy, and is itself Hill's masterful and unbelievably hard-won answer to the question: What will save us? Only art."--Merritt Tierce, author of Love Me Back

"[T]his book is brilliant. The writing shimmers off the page."--The Guardian

"Ignore, for a moment, the unignorable facts of Matt Rowland Hill's life. Ultimately it's the novelistic virtues of vivid scene-making, fully realized characterization and psychological subtlety that make Original Sins such an extraordinary book."--Geoff Dyer, author of The Last Days of Roger Federer