Hillbilly Elegy

me. On each web was at least one giant
spider, and I thought that if I looked
away from them for too long, one of
those ghastly creatures would jump on
my face and suck my blood. I’m not even
afraid of spiders, but these things were
big.
I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d
structured my entire life to avoid just
these types of places. When I thought of
leaving my hometown, of “getting out,” it
was from this sort of place that I wanted
to escape. It was past midnight. The
streetlight revealed the silhouette of a
man sitting halfway in his truck—the
door open, his feet dangling to the side
—with the unmistakable form of a