Hillbilly Elegy

vouchers—but it was striking that in an
entire discussion about why poor kids
struggled in school, the emphasis rested
entirely on public institutions. As a
teacher at my old high school told me
recently, “They want us to be shepherds
to these kids. But no one wants to talk
about the fact that many of them are
raised by wolves.”
I don’t know what happened the day
after Mom and I escaped Ken’s to
Mamaw’s for the night. Maybe I had a
test that I wasn’t able to study for.
Maybe I had a homework assignment
due that I never had the time to complete.
What I do know is that I was a
sophomore in high school, and I was