Hillbilly Elegy

the importance of doing well
academically. She often remarked that if
anyone in our family “made it,” it would
be me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her
what was really happening. I was
supposed to be a lawyer or a doctor or a
businessman, not a high school dropout.
But I was much closer to dropping out
than I was to anything else.
She learned the truth when Mom
came to me one morning demanding a jar
of clean urine. I had stayed at Mamaw’s
the night before and was getting ready
for school when Mom walked in, frantic
and out of breath. She had to submit to
random urinalyses from the nursing
board in order to keep her license, and