Hillbilly Elegy

shot of getting a college degree.”
Another said: “The violence and the
fighting, it’s all they’ve seen from a very
young age. One of my students lost her
baby like she’d lost her car keys—had
no idea where it went. Two weeks later,
her child turned up in New York City
with the father, a drug dealer, and some
of his family.” Short of a miracle, we all
know what kind of life awaits that poor
baby. Yet there’s precious little to
support her now, when an intervention
might help.
So I think that any successful policy
program would recognize what my old
high school’s teachers see every day:
that the real problem for so many of