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

Matt Rowland Hill grew up in an evangelical Christian church, but lost his faith in his late teens and became addicted to crack and heroin. His memoir, Original Sins, is an extraordinary story of faith, family, shame, and addiction, exploring how hope can arrive in unexpected forms and how the stories we tell can help us survive.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 07 July 2022
Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2022


A Sunday Times, New Statesman, and Guardian Book of the Year


A stunningly well-written, funny, heartrending, and utterly gripping memoir about learning how to live with who we are.




Written by Nathan Filer




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.


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


Joe Dunthorne

Weight: 430g
Dimension: 146 x 224 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781784743826