Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (Harper Collins, 2016, $12.59/15.99) has been on the NY Times Best Seller List for forty-nine weeks, and at the time of this writing, stands at number two. This touching, revealing, warm, sad, and inspiring memoir, written by a Yale Law School graduate whose childhood was spent in the hills of eastern Kentucky and the migrated community of Middletown, OH, opens many sores while explaining in the most human and personal terms possible the pain and misunderstanding that harms working class and poor white Americans in the Hheartlands. Throughout this tale Vance sometimes mentions findings of academic studies and other research, using them to support or introduce his own poignant experiences, but, most of all, this is the story of one man's ability to persevere in an environment where success such as he has experienced is rare, and , according to him psychically costly as well as economically expensive.
Living within a home with serial father figures coming and going and an alcoholic, drug addicted mother, he attributes the source of his core values to life in rural Jackson, Kentucky in the hills and hollers of Appalachia with his Mamaw and any number of uncles and cousins. He describes on academic paper in which the authors suggest that “hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist, a characteristic of bluegrass music, too. Vance refuses to look the others way.
Vance tracks the two major migrations from Appalachia to the industrial mid-west, particularly Middletown, OH, which were mirrored in the South, mid-South and New England, the depression era migrations and the post-WWII migration of returning veterans. He examines how the regions prospered and then died off with the decline of America industrial might, leaving abandoned neighborhoods, unemployment, and drug dependency behind, attributing this to both bad government policies and globalism.
Vance consistently refers to himself and his family as being poor and then at other times being “working class.” Joan C. Williams, in White Working Class seems to make a clear distinction between the two while Vance vacillates. He talks about “his people,” Kentucky migrants to southern Ohio, as often living off the dole, not working, and being plagued by drugs and violence, yet also talks about an uncle who escapes to the middle class, and his mother who, despite being an addict, was a nurse who was able to work a good deal of the time. He glories, however, in his extended family, his many uncles who provide him with male role models in both positive and negative ways. At times he seems remarkably judgmental, while at others, forgiving.
As Vance matures through adolescence, he begins to see the disjointures between both liberal and conservative points of view. He sees many of the government programs as well meaning but ineffective while the conservative solutions were disciplinary and draconian. In his reading of sociology, while in high school, he began to realize that the situation of black people described in his readings about black America contained the same dilemmas as did the lives and existence of the white working poor from Appalachia. “Our Elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.” (144) He's writing about religion, work, and family when he observes the deep “cognitive dissonance between the world we see and the values we preach.” (147)
As Vance prepares to attend Yale Law School he explains in touching, no-holds-barred language why a person like him, growing up in poverty, bedeviled by the rigors of having a drug addicted mother living with multiple husbands, and seemingly inured to violence and loss could reject the attractions of both the left and the right. These chapters, presented within the context of an actual life lived in poverty and difficulty, if not despair, bring so many working class and poor white men, especially, to accept so much patently untrue or misleading material in seeking to understand who they are, why they got that way, and how difficult it is to extricate oneself. In short, Vance asserts, it's easier for many to blame “the other” than it is to do the hard analysis of one's own choices, accept the verdict, and get to work to change things. What sets J.D. Vance apart is his ongoing optimism, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Interestingly, Hillbilly Elegy can also stand as a “How To” book for those seeking to find their own way to a different place in both the workplace and in society. For instance, the non-verbal behavioral cues of social class are significantly different than the behaviors that pass for progressing in working class employment and social environments. Vance shows himself always to be exceptionally alert to what's going on around him. As he gains in self confidence, his ability to ask questions of those he trusts increases. He's also a very fast learner. Nevertheless he owns to deep feelings of abandoning the culture from which he comes while yearning to become part of that with which he's not, yet, thoroughly familiar. However, the struggle is neither easy nor always successful.
Throughout Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance scatters data and information from relevant sociological and psychological writing to illuminate the points he makes, to give them a solid theoretical context. Such use of accurate research information never seems intrusive or fault-finding. Rather, it seeks to help a reader generalize from the highly personal revelation of the pain and confusion of Vance's childhood. It helps the reader gain understanding and perspective without ever excusing either those who raised him or his own mis-understandings, missed paths, and possibly botched relationships. He bravely opens the scars on his psyche, examines them, faces their consequences, and comes out the other side a stronger and better person. His painstaking honesty with the reader and his courage are never in doubt. This is not a book for the reader to quarrel with. Rather, it requires being good listeners, seeking to find the truths as they apply to them. Some would prescribe better, more effective programs. Others view the problems of poverty and drug addiction as the fault of the victim. While, ultimately, Vance looks towards personal responsibility for life, he fully understands the necessity for a compassionate government and individual acceptance of responsibility working together to make progress possible for all. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle app.
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Popular Highlights in this book
There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.Highlighted by 4,511 Kindle readers- What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.Highlighted by 4,147 Kindle readers
- It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.Highlighted by 4,007 Kindle readers
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The American midwest is in trouble...
Everybody has adversity to overcome in life. We are all dealt a different hand of cards and must do our best to beat the house. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance tells of his own hardships growing up in rural Middletown Ohio, a city that has seen a steady decline in its social fabric (due in no small part to the evacuation of the steel industry). With a drug addicted mother and an absent father, he is still one of the lucky ones because he had a grandmother, or Mamaw, who watched out for him and encouraged him to do well in school. Sometimes all it takes is one adult figure to offer support and love to a child in order for them to ‘make it.’In his book, Vance writes how he “watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration.” He continues: “What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they have for their own lives.” When I look back at my own childhood, this rings with an element of truth. In my family, for example, going to college was the expectation. There was never a conversation about whether or not I wanted to go, or whether or not it made sense for me to attend a university depending on what I wanted to do with my life as an adult. It was simply what kids like me did after high school. Only as an adult did I become aware of the other options to kids coming out of high school: working a job, traveling, joining the armed services or the peace corps, etc. But the expectation for me, set by my parents and by extension my middle class background, was that I go to college. While reading Hillbilly Elegy, I found myself wondering what it would feel like to not have that expectation, or any expectation of getting anything out of life at all. A truly existential crisis, and yet one that a huge population of the people in this country face!Almost every aspect of Vance’s life was setting him up for failure. Whether it was the acceptance of gun violence as a means to settle arguments or his mother putting soda in his baby bottle, his life was designed to keep him incapable of growth in all the important ways. Yet somehow, he made it out and now lives a comfortable happy life in Cincinnati. While regulatory bodies have done their best to help, and some of their policies have indeed made it easier for poor people to afford food and medicine, the revelation that Vance offers inside these pages is that poverty is culturally systemic. The hardships of Hillbilly culture, abundant in Appalachia and the midwest, will be a losing battle for those of us on the outside wanting to help. Herein lies the million dollar question: how do we help a culture that views outsiders with suspicion and aggression? Not to mention a cultural pride that would never admit to having a problem in the first place, and would tell you to shove off if you asked.The answer, it seems, is people like Vance. If he was able to grow up and ultimately thrive (he graduated from Yale Law School) then he is living proof that the American Dream is possible for the poor communities of the rust belt. Being an insider, perhaps he is the key, the antidote to a system inherently untrusting of outsiders. Sometimes all a child needs is a role model to aspire to, whether it be a politician, a musician, a scientist, or someone else of merit. Perhaps Vance can offer hope to some of the midwest’s most destitute children and communities.This book ultimately helped me realize the vast differences in culture across the United States. While I was aware of worldwide cultural differences, I think it a truth that many of us forget the vast variety of people and different ways of life that exist within the 3 billion square miles of land that make up the continental United States. Hillbilly Elegy inspired empathy in me for people who grow up embroiled in trauma and I sincerely hope that Vance can find progressive ways to help uplift his broken community.
Top reviews from other countries
Lucubrator
por fine, recibí en buen condicione como nuevo
Reviewed in Spain on April 26, 2024
Robert Potter
Terrific personal view of growing up in the industrial underclass
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2020