Hillbilly Elegy

and see Mamaw whenever I wanted. She
said something about needing to transfer
to a Dayton school after my freshman
year, but I figured we’d cross that bridge
in a year, when we had to.
Living with Mom and Matt was like
having a front-row seat to the end of the
world. The fighting was relatively
normal by my standards (and Mom’s),
but I’m sure poor Matt kept asking
himself how and when he’d hopped the
express train to crazy town. It was just
the three of us in that house, and it was
clear to all that it wouldn’t work out. It
was only a matter of time. Matt was a
nice guy, and as Lindsay and I joked,
nice guys never survived their