Hillbilly Elegy

had no interest in putting a forty-five-
minute barrier between me and everyone
I had ever depended on so I could
replant myself with a man I knew would
be sent packing. The therapist obviously
understood. What I didn’t tell her is that
for the first time in my life, I felt
trapped. There was no Papaw, and
Mamaw—a longtime smoker with the
emphysema to prove it—seemed too
frail and exhausted to care for a
fourteen-year-old boy. My aunt and
uncle had two young kids. Lindsay was
newly married and had a child of her
own. I had nowhere to go. I’d seen chaos
and fighting, violence, drugs, and a great
deal of instability. But I’d never felt like