Hillbilly Elegy

migration from the poorer regions of
Appalachia to places like Ohio,
Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and
Illinois, hillbilly values spread widely
along with hillbilly people. Indeed,
Kentucky transplants and their children
are so prominent in Middletown, Ohio
(where I grew up), that as kids we
derisively called it “Middletucky.”
My grandparents uprooted
themselves from the real Kentucky and
relocated to Middletucky in search of a
better life, and in some ways they found
it. In other ways, they never really
escaped. The drug addiction that plagues
Jackson has afflicted their older
daughter for her entire adult life.