Listen to a sample
Original Sins
- Author
- Matt Rowland Hill
- Narrator
- Daniel Hawksford
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 7 July 2022
- Run Time
- 9 hours 39 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
Not available in your country
We don't have the rights to sell this audiobook where you are. If it's already in your library you can still listen to it in My Books.
What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
'Isn't everyone's childhood an indoctrination in the more or less deranged outlook of the people who raised them? And isn't growing up for everyone a more or less successful attempt to overcome their conditioning and see clearly, with their own eyes?'
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, the ever-present threat of hell and damnation, and a burgeoning cycle of temptation, sin and shame. 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. This story takes us to his bleakest, most desperate moments and recounts his struggle towards the light.
Original Sins is an extraordinary memoir. It is a story of faith, family, loss, shame and addiction, but ultimately it is about survival, growing up and learning to live. It's recklessly honest, as funny as it is grave, courageous and compulsive.
© Matt Rowland Hill 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Critics Review
-
Electric...artfully structured...with novelistic verve... Hill is a blazing talent
Observer
-
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
The Times
-
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
Sunday Times
-
This book is brilliant. The writing shimmers off the page
Guardian
See more reviews See fewer reviews
-
[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
Daily Telegraph
-
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
Geoff Dyer
-
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
Literary Review
-
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
Adam Foulds, author of Dream Sequence
User Reviews
No reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Matt Rowland Hill
- Narrator
- Daniel Hawksford
- Duration
- 9 hours 39 minutes
- Release Date
- 7 July 2022
- ISBN
- 9781473588592
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Memoirs, Drugs and alcohol: social aspects, True stories of heroism, endurance and survival, Christian Churches, denominations, groups
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin. 'Isn't everyone's childhood an indoctrination in the more or less deranged outlook of the people who raised them? And isn't growing up for everyone a more or less successful attempt to overcome their conditioning and see clearly, with their own eyes?'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, the ever-present threat of hell and damnation, and a burgeoning cycle of temptation, sin and shame. 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. This story takes us to his bleakest, most desperate moments and recounts his struggle towards the light.Original Sins is an extraordinary memoir. It is a story of faith, family, loss, shame and addiction, but ultimately it is about survival, growing up and learning to live. It's recklessly honest, as funny as it is grave, courageous and compulsive.© Matt Rowland Hill 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
About xigxag
xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK's only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.
There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at $13.95. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from $7.95. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.
Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.
Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.