Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Skint Estate
- A Memoir of Poverty, Motherhood and Survival
- Narrated by: Cash Carraway
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
"Everyone has their price. It's just not always monetary. Mine is though. 20 quid."
Single mum. 'Stain on society'. Caught in a poverty trap.
It's a luxury to afford morals and if you're Cash Carraway, you do what you can to survive.
From the creator of HBO and BBC's Rain Dogs, Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain - set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows - skilfully woven into a manifesto for change.
Alone, pregnant and living in a women's refuge, Cash Carraway couldn't vote in the 2010 general election that ushered austerity into Britain. Her voice had been silenced. Years later, she watched Grenfell burn from a women's refuge around the corner. What had changed? The vulnerable were still at the bottom of the heap, unheard. Without a stable home, without a steady income, without family support - how do you survive?
In Skint Estate, Cash has found her voice - loud, raw and cutting. This is a book born straight from life lived in Britain below the poverty line - a brutal landscape savaged by universal credit, zero-hours contracts, rising rents and public service funding cuts. Told with a dark lick of humour and two-fingers up to the establishment, Cash takes us on her isolated journey from council house childhood to single motherhood, working multiple jobs yet relying on food banks and temporary accommodation, all while skewering stereotypes of what it means to be working class.
Despite being beaten down from all angles, Cash clings to the important things - love for her daughter, community and friendships - and has woven together a highly charged, hilarious and guttural cry for change.
Critic reviews
"Cash is the definition of edgy, a truly distinctive voice." (Lionel Shriver, best-selling author of We Need to Talk about Kevin)
What listeners say about Skint Estate
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paula Davidson
- 10-08-19
Terrible narration, biased view
As a single parent living on a estate I decided to purchase this book hoping it would give us all a voice. Instead all I found was a bitter author using the book to give her own opinion, she complains about being judged whilst judging other people.
Narration was awful, speeding up and slowing down in places. Some words drawn out such as say the as thhhhhhe. Didn’t get past 10 minutes before stopping
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- amotherandstudent
- 19-07-19
Cash is astonishing.
Brave doesn't come close. I don't review normally but this is important and beautifully read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ania
- 20-12-19
Very good writing but...
Very good, interesting and original writing. But for whatever reason I struggled to properly connect and empathize with her. Maybe because of the fatc that her boook was a stream of intellectual and sarcastic comments (telling the author story almost in between the lines) rather than chronological and emotional memoir.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katie Mo
- 27-11-19
Moving and thoughtful
I loved this book and despite it being a hard listen at times due to the harsh reality of the story, I am glad I have listened to it and was very moved by it. Everyone should read this book and it’s truths which are a real eye opener and a disgrace that people still have to live and fight so hard just to get by even when they are working and trying to create a better life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lorna Williams
- 24-07-19
Thank the lord for this lady
This is wonderful! I’m sure many labour supporting single mothers (like myself) who live in and around our capital can relate to this! It is also really funny, and far too late coming! Thank god, this lady by giving this (very, very) frank account has given a generation a voice, I don’t want London to be socially cleansed and only accessible to a load of boring, privileged torries! Go Cash! I hope those in charge are reading this. (They should be ashamed of themselves).
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hannah Casey
- 19-09-19
blown away
Listen very hard to this absolutely devastatingly powerful memoir. Beautifully written and narrated by Cash. I hope Steve and Lorraine get a copy for their library. xxx
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 11-09-19
Sickening and heartening in equal measure
What a writer! Her turn of phrase made me laugh and cry as her story broke my heart, made me incredibly angry about our shitty government and austerity in general and filled me with hope all at once. Knew I had to listen to it to get the full experience after following her on social media and hearing her unique intonation and the wonderful Penge accent
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tracey
- 20-09-19
Hilarious, gritty, sad and brilliant all in one
Wasn’t too sure at first but by the end I loved it. Anyone who has never known domestic abuse or poverty should listen to / read this. I would recommend listening as Kash makes it more real.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Louise
- 24-07-19
Uncomfortably uncompromisingly real
I brought my children up as a single parent, in the ‘90s - has to rely on benefits, shocking to hear that what was a struggle back then has become even more challenging today. Respect and admiration to Cash and every woman filling both the roles of both parents
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Geraldine McCoy
- 11-09-20
Skint Estate
Harrowing! Should be read by all tories!
Good luck with the rest of your life, Cash!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful