Hillbilly Elegy - Jan 25

Surprisingly, she said that I was ________(当模特的料), too, and asked if I’d like to follow my sister and ________(听一听我们的下一步计划).

After a little while in the ________(等候室), Lindsay and I and the other selectees learned that we had made it to the next round, but another trial awaited us in New York City.

The agency employees gave us brochures with more information and told us that we needed to ________(敬请回复) within the next few weeks.

________(事后一目了然), the cursory treatment they gave each individual—each “audition” was no longer than a few-sentence conversation—suggests that the whole event was ________(不是挖掘明星，而是骗局).

________(模特选拔这事从来不是我擅长的领域).

Mom began to worry aloud about the cost of the trip, causing Lindsay and me to ________(fight over) which one of us should go (no doubt I was being a brat).

Mamaw intervened before ________(事情变得一发不可收拾), but it’s a miracle we didn’t crash and die: Mom driving and slapping the kids in the backseat; Mamaw on the passenger side, slapping and screaming at Mom. That was why the car stopped—though ________(妈妈是一个可以一心多用的人), this was too much.

She had been ________(眼看就要完成某件事情了 - on the point of) achieving a childhood dream; now she was just another teenage girl with a broken heart.

She saw churches as breeding grounds for perverts and ________(外币兑换商). And she hated what she called “the loud and proud”—people who ________(到处宣扬自己的信仰), always ready to let you know how pious they were.

By Mamaw’s reckoning, ________(上帝从来没有离开我们).

During one of our many trips to Kentucky, Mamaw was trying to ________(汇入高速公路) after a brief stop for gas. She didn’t pay attention to the signs, so we found ourselves headed the wrong way on ________(单向出口匝道) with angry motorists ________(从我们的方向转弯出来).

I was screaming in terror, but after a U-turn on ________(一个三车道的州际公路), the only thing Mamaw said about the incident was “We’re fine, goddammit.“

To ________(随波逐流地生活)was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard.

Mamaw often told a ________(寓言): A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began.

________(这个堕落的世界) described by the Christian religion matched the world I saw around me: one where a happy car ride could quickly turn to misery, one where individual misconduct ________(影响一个家庭甚至一个社区的生活).

When I asked Mamaw if God loved us, I asked her to reassure me that this religion of ours could still ________(理解这个世界) we lived in. I needed reassurance of some deeper justice, ________(某种节奏) that lurked beneath the heartache and chaos.

Not long after Lindsay’s childhood modeling dream ________(灰飞烟灭), I was in Jackson with Mamaw and my cousin Gail on August 2, my eleventh birthday.

Either because she ________(为我感到难过) or because she knew I loved dogs, Gail took me to the local pet store, where ________(一窝刚生的德国牧羊幼犬) was on display.

When ________(对这些建议置若罔闻)—“You’re probably right, Gail, but they’re soooo cute!”—________(不容置疑的声音插进来): “Honey, I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you buy this dog.”

He was just ________(一长串任务失败的父亲人选名单中的最后一个名字). There was Steve, ________(一个说话温和，气质相配的男人).

Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to ________(不断变化的继父形象).

When I heard her screaming at one of them, or weeping on the floor after an especially intense argument, or when I saw her ________(陷入绝望) after a breakup, I felt guilty that she was going through this for my sake.

________(通往地狱的道路亦是由善意铺就的).

you. In the end, ________(唯一学到的道理) was that you can’t depend on people. “I learned that men will disappear ________(Immediately, without delay),” Lindsay once said. “They don’t care about their kids; they don’t provide; they just disappear, and it’s not that hard to make them go.”

I knew that Don had abandoned me because he didn’t want to ________(支付抚养金) (or so Mom said).

And I knew that he was, in Mamaw’s words, a “________(圣滚者教派成员[宗教]).” That was the word she used for charismatic Christians who, she claimed, “________(控蛇) and screamed and wailed in church.”