Hillbilly Elegy

stay,” she said, which struck me as an
odd instruction. I had told her on the
phone not an hour earlier that the room
wasn’t for me, it was for my homeless
mother. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
I was a recent graduate of Yale Law
School, a former editor of the
prestigious Yale Law Journal, and a
member of the bar in good standing. Just
two months earlier, Usha and I were
married on a beautiful day in Eastern
Kentucky. My entire family showed up
for the occasion, and we both changed
our name to Vance—giving me, finally,
the same name as the family to which I
belonged. I had a nice job, a recently
purchased home, a loving relationship,