Hillbilly Elegy

mutter under her breath, chastened and
uncomfortable. But at Bill’s Family
Diner, the only restaurant in Jackson
worth sitting down at for a meal, she’d
scream at the kitchen staff to “hurry the
hell up” and they’d laugh and say,
“Okay, Bonnie.” Then she’d look at me
and tell me, “You know I’m just fucking
with them, right? They know I’m not a
mean old bitch.”
In Jackson, among old friends and
real hillbillies, she needed no filter. At
her brother’s funeral a few years earlier,
Mamaw and her niece Denise convinced
themselves that one of the pallbearers
was a pervert, so they broke into his
funeral home office and searched