Hillbilly Elegy

street was the culmination of the things I
hadn’t seen. She’d begun taking
prescription narcotics not long after we
moved to Preble County. I believe the
problem started with a legitimate
prescription, but soon enough, Mom was
stealing from her patients and getting so
high that turning an emergency room into
a skating rink seemed like a good idea.
Papaw’s death turned a semi-functioning
addict into a woman unable to follow the
basic norms of adult behavior.
In this way, Papaw’s death
permanently altered the trajectory of our
family. Before his death, I had settled
into the chaotic but happy routine of
splitting time between Mom’s and