Copyright

first edition

Portions of chapter 1 have previously appeared in a different form in the Washington Post story “I Called This Place ‘America’s Worst Place to Live.’ Then I Went There.”

Portions of chapter 5 have previously appeared in a different form in the Washington Post story “I Ordered a Box of Crickets from the Internet and It Went About as Well as You’d Expect.”

Portions of chapter 8 have previously appeared in a different form in the Washington Post story “Why These Rural, White, Gun-Owning Guys Didn’t Vote for Trump.”

Portions of chapter 3, chapter 5, and the epilogue have previously appeared in a different form in the Washington Post story “What Life Is Really Like in ‘America’s Worst Place to Live.’”

Cover design by Joanne O’Neill

Cover images © Darumo/Ganna Galata/Volodymyr Kotoshchuk/Vect0r0vich/istock/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-286149-8

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-286147-4