Hillbilly Elegy

her addiction and better than the father
figures who’d walked out on me. I
regretted only that Mamaw and Papaw
weren’t around to see it.
But there were signs that things
weren’t going so well, particularly in my
relationship with Usha. We’d been
dating for only a few months when she
stumbled upon an analogy that described
me perfectly. I was, she said, a turtle.
“Whenever something bad happens—
even a hint of disagreement—you
withdraw completely. It’s like you have
a shell that you hide in.”
It was true. I had no idea how to deal
with relationship problems, so I chose
not to deal with them at all. I could