Hillbilly Elegy

combined with verbal abuse—spanking
was methodical and anger-free. My
younger brother and sister clearly
enjoyed their lives, even though they
lacked pop music or R-rated movies.
What little I knew of Dad’s character
during his marriage to Mom came mostly
secondhand. Mamaw, Aunt Wee,
Lindsay, and Mom all told varying
degrees of the same story: that Dad was
mean. He yelled a lot and sometimes hit
Mom. Lindsay told me that, as a child, I
had a peculiarly large and misshapen
head, and she attributed that to a time
when she saw Dad push Mom
aggressively.
Dad denies ever physically abusing