Skint Estate cover art

Skint Estate

A Memoir of Poverty, Motherhood and Survival

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Skint Estate

By: Cash Carraway
Narrated by: Cash Carraway
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About this listen

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.

©2019 Cash Carraway (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Poverty & Homelessness Social Sciences Memoir Funny Witty Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking Survival

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Critic reviews

"Cash is the definition of edgy, a truly distinctive voice." (Lionel Shriver, best-selling author of We Need to Talk about Kevin)

All stars
Most relevant
Brave doesn't come close. I don't review normally but this is important and beautifully read



Cash is astonishing.

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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

Sickening and heartening in equal measure

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Wasn't able to put this book down and read it twice over the Christmas period. The gritty truth of the working class and the struggle of surviving on the benefits system well illustrated, painfully so.

Absolutely loved it

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Listened to this over 2 days and I'm blown away, I wasn't expecting it to be so funny but I was totally gripped. To hear Cash reading her words really brought the story to life, I've heard that its being adapted for television but I'm hoping she performs it live too. This is unlike anything I've come across before. Storytelling at its finest.

Witty, shocking, addictive

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everyone needs to read this book.

what an amazing woman!

This is the taste of reality everyone should have. a real eye opener.

Harsh, heartbreaking, shocking and necessary

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