Hillbilly Elegy

my law school admissions essay, knew
about the formative experiences that
shaped my life. At Yale, I decided to
change that.
I’m not sure what motivated this
change. Part of it is that I stopped being
ashamed: My parents’ mistakes were not
my fault, so I had no reason to hide them.
But I was concerned most of all that no
one understood my grandparents’ outsize
role in my life. Few of even my closest
friends understood how utterly hopeless
my life would have been without
Mamaw and Papaw. So maybe I just
wanted to give credit where credit is
due.
Yet there’s something else. As I