Hillbilly Elegy

started to talk about the problems in our
community. Mamaw encouraged me to
get a job—she told me that it would be
good for me and that I needed to learn
the value of a dollar. When her
encouragement fell on deaf ears, she then
demanded that I get a job, and so I did,
as a cashier at Dillman’s, a local
grocery store.
Working as a cashier turned me into
an amateur sociologist. A frenetic stress
animated so many of our customers. One
of our neighbors would walk in and yell
at me for the smallest of transgressions
—not smiling at her, or bagging the
groceries too heavy one day or too light
the next. Some came into the store in a