Hillbilly Elegy

trauma-and-survival

• She sped up to what seemed like a hundred miles an hour and told me she was going to crash the car and kill us both. I jumped into the backseat.

  HE-001

• Mom was in the hospital, the result of a failed suicide attempt. My eleven-year-old eyes missed so much.

  HE-002

belonging

• Mamaw and Papaw were my best friends. They were also the gatekeepers—the scariest people I knew—old hillbillies who would go to war for me.

  HE-003

• Mamaw was my keeper, my protector. No matter what life threw at me, I'd be okay because she was there to protect me.

  HE-005

ambition-and-status

• The Marine Corps replaced it with something else, something that loathes excuses. 'If you're not puking, you're lazy! Stop being fucking lazy!'

  HE-013

• Bob missed work about once a week and was chronically late, taking three or four half-hour bathroom breaks daily—a portrait of corrosive disengagement.

  HE-011