Howdy,
Right as I finished reading the chart-topping Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance and was looking at the author’s picture on the back jacket, my three-year-old son Titus climbed up on the chair and into my lap and said, “That’s you, Dad. That’s you.”
“Me?”
“Is that you, Dad?”
I told Ti no.
But that’s what I was wondering. I’m not sure … maybe, was what I was thinking.
But, no, Titus, that’s not me. Not before and not yet. Never to that extent back in our history and not to that level of the author on the back page as a published writer.
You may have to read Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis to know what I mean, but it’s eye-opening (eye-popping) with its crazy but also recognizable in some of its insights. Both by experience and geography. Not the same, but slivers.
That’s you, Dad.
Maybe it’s you, too. In shimmers—those slivers and shivers of insights. Not all bright.
But a search for a hope for the future.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
P.S. A caution if you’re particularly sensitive to colorful, “Hillbilly” language, but otherwise I recommend the best-selling book that had been highly recommended to me. Maybe my friend was trying to tell me something: I am a Billy from the hills.
Word Count: 187,395 / On Pace: 190,850 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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