Hillbilly Elegy

This wasn’t one of my prouder
moments, but it highlights the inner
conflict inspired by rapid upward
mobility: I had lied to a stranger to
avoid feeling like a traitor. There are
lessons to draw here, among them what
I’ve noted already: that one consequence
of isolation is seeing standard metrics of
success as not just unattainable but as the
property of people not like us. Mamaw
always fought that attitude in me, and for
the most part, she was successful.
Another lesson is that it’s not just our
own communities that reinforce the
outsider attitude, it’s the places and
people that upward mobility connects us
with—like my professor who suggested