Hillbilly Elegy

would bring shame or any other
consequences. The message wasn’t
explicit; teachers didn’t tell us that we
were too stupid or poor to make it.
Nevertheless, it was all around us, like
the air we breathed: No one in our
families had gone to college; older
friends and siblings were perfectly
content to stay in Middletown,
regardless of their career prospects; we
knew no one at a prestigious out-of-state
school; and everyone knew at least one
young adult who was underemployed or
didn’t have a job at all.
In Middletown, 20 percent of the
public high school’s entering freshmen
won’t make it to graduation. Most won’t