Garrison Mcdavid answers “This is a hard read. I am 53 years old...”

Atheena asked this question about Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis:

This is a hard read. I am 53 years old and just finished this book yesterday. I have cried all day yesterday, all night woke with nightmares and am crying now. I know this is for questions. The only question I have is... does it ever get ok?

Garrison Mcdavid Sir, I heard an interview between Charlie Rose and Mr. Vance night before last. Immediately, I became mesmerized by what they were saying. I had a Eur…moreSir, I heard an interview between Charlie Rose and Mr. Vance night before last. Immediately, I became mesmerized by what they were saying. I had a Eureka moment, an ah ha. In the same vein, I participated in a book discussion of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres. I have found through travel from where I am so attached helps me assimilate the change. Change has occurred at enormous speed since the internet and Facebook have enabled corporate profits to increase through worker exploitation. Hillbillies are excellent workers. They take pride in doing a job well, bearing considerable stress for their family's good, and believe in heaven as an award for self-flagellation. Yes, it does get better by being true to one's own self. I wish we could all "speak what we feel, not what we ought" a line from King Lear of Shakespeare's time. As a SW Virginian by birth having passed through the excesses of 80s banking in Manhattan and East Hampton, travel in South and Central America, and found peace and career challenge in Spain, I suggest that we all get off our chests the worries we have through keeping a journal (The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron), visiting an unfamiliar part of the US or other country on a shoe string budget, and realizing change is constant. Keep the faith, but lose the past.(less)

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