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.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 100,032 ratings
Price: 14.99
Last update: 08-01-2024
About this item
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO
"You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist
"A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal
"Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.
A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Top reviews from the United States
Ted Lehmann5.0 out of 5 stars
From Appalachia to Yale: Success at Heart Wrenching Costs - A Must Read
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2017
J. Foster4.0 out of 5 stars
More questions than answers
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2017
J.D. Vance chronicles his "upwardly mobile" journey from a dirt-poor boy in the backwoods of Kentucky, to a Yale-educated lawyer in Washington D.C. It is quite a journey, to be sure. J.D.'s story is one of family ties, bad choices, cyclical dysfunction, and in some cases, redemption.
"Hillbilly Elegy" first landed on my reading list due to an article in my newsfeed that listed Vance's memoir as potential insight into the group that supposedly swung this year's election in favor of Donald Trump - poor, working-class whites in the country's rust belt. We do indeed get an insider's glimpse into the mindset and lifestyle of the poor, white communities in Appalachia and surrounding regions. Yet politics and analysis is minimal, so any link between the group in question and our president is left mostly as an exercise for the reader.
The book is fascinating on many levels, the least of which was the dichotomy between the strong family ties upon which the hillbillies draw their strength and honor, and the dysfunction, cheating, brawling, and deep-seated anger present in their everyday lives. Blood is indeed, thicker than water.
To me, the real question is just how we break the cycle of poverty and bad choices. One particular story Vance relays typifies the scenario played out over and over in his community. A young man with a pregnant girlfriend landed a decent job in a tile warehouse. This man was chronically late, missed work at least once a week, and took hour-long bathroom breaks. Though warned repeatedly, his behavior did not change. Yet when he was finally fired, he lashed out at the manager for being inconsiderate of his difficult home situation (which, of course, he created in the first place!).
This mindset of blaming others is very prevalent throughout the book. The author, however, places some of the blame at the foot of the conservative rhetoric - instead of pushing the poor to engage their issues, "the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault." I think this is a bit of a cop out, and to be honest, struck me as pandering to liberal elite that runs most of the media in this country. I would suggest that the creation of our massive welfare state, and the dependence of the poor on government handouts with little to no accountability is much more responsible for the poor's inability to truly confront their station in life.
Similarly, Vance takes some time to disparage evangelical theology as taught by the church his dad attended. To be sure, there is often much to disparage. In fact, the suspicion of science and government held by his dad's church mirrors the attitude of many of my fellow evangelical brothers and sisters. Yet, the irony that his dad's home life was one of the few peaceful and stable families in his entire existence is not lost on Vance. In fact, he admits, "Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at all."
Sometimes I think society at large wants the results of what they find in the church and organized religion, yet chafe at the thought of being told what to do, and what behavior is acceptable and what is not. The fact that possibly you can't get one without the other is a possibility our "enlightened" minds simply do not want to consider. And what is it, exactly, that these church-going people find at church? It's not a "phenomenon," as Vance categorizes it, but the power of Jesus Christ.
I feel I would be remiss, as well, at this point not to push back against a sentiment Vance conveys as popular truth - evangelical churches are shedding members at an alarming rate. As a proof-point, he references an article from the Huffington Post that makes the tired claim that evangelicalism is being rejected by the current generation. Huffington Post, the darling child of hipsters and liberals everywhere, has never been a friend of evangelicals, and I would hope other, more balanced studies would be considered. The book, "Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told" is a good place to start. Using strong scientific and statistical analysis, it directly refutes some of the very studies mentioned in the HP article. Anyway, I digress. Admittedly, conservative politics and the supposed failure of evangelicalism are overall a smaller focus in the book.
For the most part, Vance simply recounts the story of his life, and that of his closest relatives. It is fascinating, heart-breaking, and often akin to watching the proverbial train wreck. In fact, I wonder if that is one reason the book has been so popular. For most of us, we can read about the dysfunction so prevalent in Vance's upbringing and pat ourselves on the back - we're not perfect, but at least we're not as bad as that Vance clan!
Only near the end of the book, in Chapter 14, does Vance attempt some deeper analysis and retrospective thinking. And I would hope we would do the same. The situation surrounding poor, working-class whites in the Midwest, similar to that surrounding African Americans in urban settings, is complex and difficult, with no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we should't still be tackling these inconvenient issues. Everything from how we respond to the poor, to how we treat our spouse, is on the table.
I appreciate Vance airing out his dirty laundry. I doubt many of us would want our family's deepest and darkest secrets to be exposed in a book for all to read. But in doing so, he gives us the opportunity to participate in the plight of an entire segment of our population that, until the last year, was rarely spoken of.
---------------
I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between both sites.
5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime.
4 - Very good.
3 - Worth your time.
2 - Not very good.
1 - Atrocious
"Hillbilly Elegy" first landed on my reading list due to an article in my newsfeed that listed Vance's memoir as potential insight into the group that supposedly swung this year's election in favor of Donald Trump - poor, working-class whites in the country's rust belt. We do indeed get an insider's glimpse into the mindset and lifestyle of the poor, white communities in Appalachia and surrounding regions. Yet politics and analysis is minimal, so any link between the group in question and our president is left mostly as an exercise for the reader.
The book is fascinating on many levels, the least of which was the dichotomy between the strong family ties upon which the hillbillies draw their strength and honor, and the dysfunction, cheating, brawling, and deep-seated anger present in their everyday lives. Blood is indeed, thicker than water.
To me, the real question is just how we break the cycle of poverty and bad choices. One particular story Vance relays typifies the scenario played out over and over in his community. A young man with a pregnant girlfriend landed a decent job in a tile warehouse. This man was chronically late, missed work at least once a week, and took hour-long bathroom breaks. Though warned repeatedly, his behavior did not change. Yet when he was finally fired, he lashed out at the manager for being inconsiderate of his difficult home situation (which, of course, he created in the first place!).
This mindset of blaming others is very prevalent throughout the book. The author, however, places some of the blame at the foot of the conservative rhetoric - instead of pushing the poor to engage their issues, "the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault." I think this is a bit of a cop out, and to be honest, struck me as pandering to liberal elite that runs most of the media in this country. I would suggest that the creation of our massive welfare state, and the dependence of the poor on government handouts with little to no accountability is much more responsible for the poor's inability to truly confront their station in life.
Similarly, Vance takes some time to disparage evangelical theology as taught by the church his dad attended. To be sure, there is often much to disparage. In fact, the suspicion of science and government held by his dad's church mirrors the attitude of many of my fellow evangelical brothers and sisters. Yet, the irony that his dad's home life was one of the few peaceful and stable families in his entire existence is not lost on Vance. In fact, he admits, "Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at all."
Sometimes I think society at large wants the results of what they find in the church and organized religion, yet chafe at the thought of being told what to do, and what behavior is acceptable and what is not. The fact that possibly you can't get one without the other is a possibility our "enlightened" minds simply do not want to consider. And what is it, exactly, that these church-going people find at church? It's not a "phenomenon," as Vance categorizes it, but the power of Jesus Christ.
I feel I would be remiss, as well, at this point not to push back against a sentiment Vance conveys as popular truth - evangelical churches are shedding members at an alarming rate. As a proof-point, he references an article from the Huffington Post that makes the tired claim that evangelicalism is being rejected by the current generation. Huffington Post, the darling child of hipsters and liberals everywhere, has never been a friend of evangelicals, and I would hope other, more balanced studies would be considered. The book, "Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told" is a good place to start. Using strong scientific and statistical analysis, it directly refutes some of the very studies mentioned in the HP article. Anyway, I digress. Admittedly, conservative politics and the supposed failure of evangelicalism are overall a smaller focus in the book.
For the most part, Vance simply recounts the story of his life, and that of his closest relatives. It is fascinating, heart-breaking, and often akin to watching the proverbial train wreck. In fact, I wonder if that is one reason the book has been so popular. For most of us, we can read about the dysfunction so prevalent in Vance's upbringing and pat ourselves on the back - we're not perfect, but at least we're not as bad as that Vance clan!
Only near the end of the book, in Chapter 14, does Vance attempt some deeper analysis and retrospective thinking. And I would hope we would do the same. The situation surrounding poor, working-class whites in the Midwest, similar to that surrounding African Americans in urban settings, is complex and difficult, with no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we should't still be tackling these inconvenient issues. Everything from how we respond to the poor, to how we treat our spouse, is on the table.
I appreciate Vance airing out his dirty laundry. I doubt many of us would want our family's deepest and darkest secrets to be exposed in a book for all to read. But in doing so, he gives us the opportunity to participate in the plight of an entire segment of our population that, until the last year, was rarely spoken of.
---------------
I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between both sites.
5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime.
4 - Very good.
3 - Worth your time.
2 - Not very good.
1 - Atrocious
val5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book. But what happened to the man who wrote it?
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2024
I encountered JD Vance earlier this year when my son was taking a D&I college class. Watching a video of him being interviewed was one of the assignments and he shared name video with me. That week's assignment was white working class America. I loved his story and descriptions. Then I learned who he was. The man he has become, angry, lying and protective of the most evil man in America is an astoundingly negative transformation. This book confused me even more. Well written and articulate, it makes me sad about what becomes of people who seek political power above all else.