Hillbilly Elegy

floats. Across the street is a building that
looks like a theater, with one of those
giant triangular signs that reads
“ST___L” because the letters in the
middle were shattered and never
replaced. If you need a payday lender or
a cash-for-gold store, downtown
Middletown is the place to be.
Not far from the main drag of empty
shops and boarded-up windows is the
Sorg Mansion. The Sorgs, a powerful
and wealthy industrial family dating
back to the nineteenth century, operated a
large paper mill in Middletown. They
donated enough money to put their names
on the local opera house and helped
build Middletown into a respectable