Hillbilly Elegy

This is a long dissertation on what it’s like to be a poor white living in a Rust Belt town in Appalachian Kentucky. This somewhat boring (although funny and sad at times) memoir by J. D. Vance shifts back and forth from his family’s original homestead in Breathitt County, Kentucky to the move north to Middletown, Ohio, where they will try to improve their family’s social position. But as you will find out...that’s not an easy task. The average person calls the people of Scots-Irish descent hillbillies, rednecks or white trash. And the name calling is mostly justified. By author J. D. Vance’s own admission, “We do not like outsiders or people who are different from us, whether the difference lies in how they look, how they act, or, most important, how they talk. To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.”

First of all, I should have told you that this entire book is narrated by J. D. Vance. Tediously, he will tell the reader how he rose above his childhood, did a tour with the U.S. Marine Corps, graduated college at Ohio State and later graduated with a law degree from Yale University. After all these accomplishments, he will remind the reader that he is still a hillbilly and proud of it! And he doesn’t sugar coat his youth. “The fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups - some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are - suggest something else is going on. Indeed it is.” They have too many problems for me to enumerate in this review...go get your own copy. Further on, Vance says, “It’s about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.” This Vance guy talks like a lawyer (Haha).
 
Vance further states that one hillbilly problem is: “Too many young men immune to hard work.” Author Vance, himself, wasn’t immune to work, but his poor upbringing was his albatross. Living at many different addresses (since his mother was married five times) coupled with his mom’s drug addiction didn’t give Vance a firm base to start life. Luckily, he had grandparents that he could go to for solace and housing in between mom’s bouts with drugs. He lovingly calls them papaw and mamaw throughout the book. During that part of his life, he says,”I earned my first bloody nose at five and my first black eye at six. Each of these fights began after someone insulted my mother. Mother jokes were never allowed, and grandmother jokes earned the harshest punishment that my little fist could administer.” The hillbilly rule is that it’s okay to start a fight...only if a man insults your family. This last rule was unspoken but clear.”

Family arguments usually depended on who Vance’s mom was married to at the time, “Mom and Bob’s (husband number ?) problems were my first introduction to marital conflict resolution. Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if a fight gets a little too intense, it’s okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn’t hit first; always express your feelings in a way that’s insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don’t tell your spouse where to find you…” Is that priceless advise or what? Vance talking (in general) about hillbillies, “Why didn’t our neighbor leave that abusive man. Why did she spend money on drugs? Why couldn’t she see that her behavior was destroying her daughter? Why were all of these things happening not just to our neighbor but to my mom? It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America.”

The fact that J. D. Vance admits (in the above statement) that the book to understand the plight of the hillbilly hasn’t been written yet is the reason why I really got nothing out of reading this book. Listen, I know that it topped the New York Times bestseller list for a long time (8/2016 - 1/2017) and that there are over 11,500 reviews on Amazon, but there’s nothing to learn from reading this book. Vance sums up hillbilly life: “Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. In stability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.” That’s the answer?? He further says, “How much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions, and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our parents who have failed their children? How much is mom’s life her own fault? Where does blame stop and Sympathy begin?”

I will leave you with a funny parable Mamaw told a young Vance: A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me”. A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man’s home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me.” A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof-his entire home flooded-a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: “You promised that you’d help me so long as I was faithful.” God replied, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault.” God helps those who help themselves. This was the wisdom of the Book of Mamaw.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I really wanted to give this book three and a half stars, but Amazon only accepts whole numbers and this book was better than a three...thus the four star rating.

I’m really not a memoir reader. I just knew this book was a big seller and decided to read it without doing any homework on it’s subject matter.

The only memoirs I liked were: Lauren Bacall by Myself (published in 1978) and WIRED: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward in 1984 (which really wasn’t a memoir).

And if I’m having trouble sleeping, all I have to do is start reading Jon Meacham’s 2008 book American Lion, the story of our 7th president, Andrew Jackson. I’m falling asleep just thinking about it...zzzz.