Hillbilly Elegy

moment she told me her nephew went to
Yale, I had to choose: Was I a Yale Law
student, or was I a Middletown kid with
hillbilly grandparents? If the former, I
could exchange pleasantries and talk
about New Haven’s beauty; if the latter,
she occupied the other side of an
invisible divide and could not to be
trusted. At her cocktail parties and fancy
dinners, she and her nephew probably
even laughed about the unsophisticates
of Ohio and how they clung to their guns
and religion. I would not join forces
with her. My answer was a pathetic
attempt at cultural defiance: “No, I don’t
go to Yale. But my girlfriend does.” And
then I got in my car and drove away.