Hillbilly Elegy

without kids. And she cycled through
boyfriends, switching partners every few
months. It was so bad that my best friend
at the time commented on her “flavors of
the month.” I’d grown accustomed to a
certain amount of instability, but it was
of a familiar type: There would be
fighting or running away from fights;
when things got rocky, Mom would
explode on us or even slap or pinch us. I
didn’t like it—who would?—but this
new behavior was just strange. Though
Mom had been many things, she hadn’t
been a partier. When we moved back to
Middletown, that changed.
With partying came alcohol, and
with alcohol came alcohol abuse and