83 pages • 2 hours read
J. D. VanceA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 9 begins with Vance’s descent into depressive isolation worsening. His mother demands he provide her with clean urine, so she can pass a urinalysis and keep her nursing job. Vance explodes, calling both his mom and Mamaw out on their poor parenting, then admitting to Mamaw that his own urine may not be drug-free due to experimenting with Ken’s marijuana. Mamaw assuages these concerns and persuades Vance to give his urine to Bev.
By the end of his sophomore year, Bev has moved out of Ken’s home, and Vance is living with Mamaw in Middletown. Vance provides more detail on Mamaw, explaining why she returns to Kentucky less and less throughout her life. “It was the place where she sometimes went hungry as a child, from which she ran in the wake of a teenage pregnancy scandal, and where too many of her friends had given their lives to the mines. I wanted to escape to Jackson; she had escaped from it” (134).