Hillbilly Elegy

deity in the eyes of us grandkids and
great-grandkids, I’ve never heard anyone
else called “the nicest person in the
world.” For Gail, it’s an entirely
deserved title.
I assumed that Gail had inherited her
storybook life from her parents. No one’s
that nice, I thought, especially not
someone who’s suffered any real
adversity. But Gail was a Blanton, and,
at heart a hillbilly, and I should have
known that no hillbilly makes it to
adulthood without a few major screwups
along the way. Gail’s home life provided
its own emotional baggage. She was
seven when her dad walked out and
seventeen when she graduated from high