Hillbilly Elegy

Ken’s three children—a young girl
and two boys about the same age I was
—found the new arrangement as strange
as I did. The oldest boy fought constantly
with Mom, which—thanks to the
Appalachian honor code—meant that he
fought constantly with me. Shortly before
I went to bed one night, I came
downstairs just as he called her a bitch.
No self-respecting hillbilly could stand
idly by, so I made it abundantly clear
that I meant to beat my new stepbrother
to within an inch of his life. So
unquenchable was my appetite for
violence that night that Mom and Ken
decided that my new stepbrother and I
should be separated. I wasn’t even