Hillbilly Elegy

through his belongings. They found an
extensive magazine collection, including
a few issues of Beaver Hunt (a
periodical that I can assure you has
nothing to do with aquatic mammals).
Mamaw found it hilarious. “Fucking
Beaver Hunt!” she’d roar. “Who comes
up with this shit?” She and Denise
hatched a plot to take the magazines
home and mail them to the pallbearer’s
wife. After a short deliberation, she
changed her mind. “With my luck,” she
told me, “we’ll get in a crash on the way
back to Ohio and the police will find
these damned things in my trunk. I’ll be
damned if I’m going to go out with
everyone thinking I was a lesbian—and