Hillbilly Elegy

expected to hear a rant about character
flaws. What I heard instead was
sympathy and a little sadness but
primarily a life lesson: “I still call him
regularly and check up on him. You can’t
just cast aside family members because
they seem uninterested in you. You’ve
got to make the effort, because they’re
family.”
I tried to go to a counselor, but it
was just too weird. Talking to some
stranger about my feelings made me
want to vomit. I did go to the library, and
I learned that behavior I considered
commonplace was the subject of pretty
intense academic study. Psychologists
call the everyday occurrences of my and