Hillbilly Elegy

people thought I looked like him. And I
knew that he was, in Mamaw’s words, a
“Holy Roller.” That was the word she
used for charismatic Christians who, she
claimed, “handled snakes and screamed
and wailed in church.” This was enough
to pique my curiosity: With little
religious training, I was desperate for
some exposure to a real church. I asked
Mom if I could see him, and she agreed,
so in the same summer that my legal
father walked out of my life, my
biological one walked back in. Mom had
come full circle: Having cycled through
a number of men in an effort to find me a
father, she had settled on the original
candidate.