Hillbilly Elegy

he didn’t care for my taste in classic
rock, especially Led Zeppelin. He
wasn’t mean about it—that wasn’t his
style—and he didn’t tell me I couldn’t
listen to my favorite bands; he just
advised that I listen to Christian rock
instead. I could never tell my dad that I
played a nerdy collectible card game
called Magic, because I feared he’d
think the cards were satanic—after all,
kids at the church youth group often
spoke of Magic and its evil influence on
young Christians. And as most teenagers
do, I had so many questions about my
faith—whether it was compatible with
modern science, for instance, or whether
this or that denomination was correct on