Hillbilly Elegy

Papaw over forty-five minutes away, the
fights turned into screaming matches.
Often the subject was money, though it
made little sense for a rural Ohio family
with a combined income of over a
hundred thousand dollars to struggle
with money. But fight they did, because
they bought things they didn’t need—
new cars, new trucks, a swimming pool.
By the time their short marriage fell
apart, they were tens of thousands of
dollars in debt, with nothing to show for
it.
Finances were the least of our
problems. Mom and Bob had never been
violent with each other, but that slowly
started to change. I awoke one night to