Hillbilly Elegy

(Rick Simeone) #1

1947.


At that time, as the post–World War
II euphoria wore off and people began to
adjust to a world at peace, there were
two types of people in Jackson: those
who uprooted their lives and planted
them in the industrial powerhouses of the
new America, and those who didn’t. At
the tender ages of fourteen and
seventeen, my grandparents had to
decide which group to join.
As Papaw once told me, the sole
option for many of his friends was to
work “in the mines”—mining coal not
far from Jackson. Those who stayed in
Jackson spent their lives on the edge of
poverty, if not submerged in it. So, soon

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