In the Shadow of the Valley: A Memoir

by Bobi Conn

In my small world, I found myself more alone than ever and wondered whether any of these other worlds would ever truly want me, whether I could belong anywhere. I couldn’t return to the holler where I grew up—my father lives there still, shut in my granny’s house, all the old magic gone from a place now filled with the sorrow and torment of a man shooting up heroin that is somehow affordable to the hillbillies that once had to rely on Lortabs for such a high. The new home and family I thought I had—the family I chose, the ones who care about social justice and the environment—have abandoned me each time a man told them to, and I never know who is gone until I meet them in the grocery store or at a restaurant and they look at me, full of knowing, then turn away.