Matt Rowland Hill

Original Sins Matt Rowland Hill

An electrifying debut memoir of a pastor's son chronicling his loss of faith, his addiction to heroin and our universal quest to find something to believe in

Matt Rowland Hill had two great loves in his life: Jesus and heroin. The son of a conservative minister, Hill grew up with an unwavering devotion to the tenets of his father's Baptist church. Yet by high school, he began to experience a crisis of faith. To fill the void, he turned to literature, and then to heroin and cocaine. By his twenties, Hill's substance abuse escalated into a full-on addiction. As he grew increasingly suicidal, he knew he had to walk away from both religion and drugs to survive.

With echoes of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and Blackout, Hill's debut is an extraordinary, gorgeously crafted memoir of faith, family, loss, shame and addiction. But ultimately, Original Sins is a raw portrait of survival--of growing up and learning how to live.