Saturday, January 28, 2017

HILLBILLY ELEGY





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Hillbilly Elegy, J D Vance, Harper, 2016, 257 pp


First off, let me say that this review contains my very personal reactions to this book as well as some political views. I don't generally like to get political on the blog or on social media, but the current scene has changed me. I feel I need to speak up for as long as I have a chance to do so. I don't expect everyone to agree with me and in fact welcome all comments, so long as they are not hateful or rude. 

I am glad I read this. J D Vance grew up in a small Ohio town, the son of an unstable mother who went through men the way some women go through shoes, who was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and who left her son feeling unstable, unloved, and unprotected. If not for his maternal grandparents, he would have been a statistic. Because of them and his sister along with a few other teachers and friends, he became a success story.

The grandparents were hillbillies from Kentucky's Appalachia area who moved to Ohio to escape poverty. Their story shows you can take the hillbilly out of Appalachia but you can't take the Appalachia mentality out of the hillbilly. Alcohol, inconsistent and sometimes abusive parenting, as well as the culture of Appalachia made a "middle class" family that sounded nothing like my ideas of the American middle class. J D's story is harrowing, in the way that Jeannette Wall's The Glass Castle was.

Yet, he did finish high school, he graduated from college and Yale Law School, became a successful lawyer, and found a wonderful wife. This is a story of hope leavened by the randomness of life. I would say, after reading the book, that the author is in the one percent of people who can rise above the self-defeating cultural patterns of poverty, drug use, Evangelical beliefs, and violence that plagues so much of our country.

I credit the book for painting what I accept as a credible picture of a large part of society. I am a middle class white liberal and I could hardly recognize the people in J D Vance's family. However, since the election of Donald Trump, I have forced myself to listen to/read the screeds of his followers because I felt it was important to understand why anyone would have voted for him. I still don't totally get it but I am beginning to fathom a mentality that I had been in denial about. In fact, ever since watching the movie Idiocracy, I have joked about the idiocracy. 

Hillbilly Elegy convinced me it is no joke, that in fact our country is riddled with misinformed,  under-educated, crippled individuals who are divorced from what is actually going on in the world. I am starting to understand how such a disaster can happen in the richest, most powerful democracy in the world, but I have little idea what can be done about it. 

I am aware that our new President also has many supporters who are well educated, who grew up in stable homes, who have been successful in life. I don't get that at all. It is sad.

I think Hillbilly Elegy is an important book. While it purports to be a memoir and is successful as such, the author mixed in a good deal of sociological analysis. Those sections were less successful because they led to no real solutions.

The main conclusion I came to is that it is not our government leaders or even our political system that will either solve or exacerbate these problems. It takes an entire populace, the majority of whom are dedicated to the ideals of democracy and equal rights, to justice, to liberty. The question in 2017 is do we have such a majority. I choose to believe we do.


(Hillbilly Elegy is available on the non-fiction shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)


10 comments:

  1. Great review Judy. A standout one. I'm on a list at the library for this one; it sounds important! I think there are 5 types who voted for Trump: the greedy (who want no regulations & little taxes); the ignorant (who are self-explanatory); the bigots (who fear anyone unlike themselves); the religious right (who want to take away a women's reproductive rights); the misogynists who hated Hillary; and finally those who just want an obnoxious SOB to shake up everyone's sanity. Have I missed anyone?

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    1. I think you pretty much covered the types. I would add one more: the ones I just can't understand. Thanks for admiring my review.

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  2. I have seen this book being reviewed many times in the blogosphere last year. While I don't think it is my cup of tea, it sounds like it makes its points very well.

    Are you suggesting that Trump's followers are uneducated and poor? Let me remind you that he swept by a wide margin with the electoral votes, not necessarily in areas associated with poverty. Just because they are not politically correct doesn't mean they should be considered any less educated, fit to vote and decide, or be any less than any liberal.

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    1. I admit that I may have come across that way in my review. I think many different kinds of people voted for Trump. I respect the right of anyone in a democracy to vote as they see fit. It is not a matter of political correctness for me. It is a matter of having a President who will uphold the Constitution and work intelligently to lead a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. All the people. I am aware that is a large order. Some presidents have done it better than others. President Trump does not have my confidence.

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  3. GREAT review, Judy. I will definitely add this on my list. I agree when you say "This is a story of hope leavened by the randomness of life."

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  4. Interesting review. This book has been much praised and you appear to be firmly in the majority who really liked it. I don't think I'll be reading it though. I already know these people that he's writing about, because, like him, I grew up among them. They have many admirable qualities, including the fact that they will do anything to help a neighbor - but they define neighbor very narrowly. Like the president they elected, they are generally intellectually incurious and have an extremely constricted view of the world. Many of them are my relatives and, while I love them and respect their right to live as they choose, I know that they do not extend that courtesy to others.

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    1. I respect and understand your decision here. I really do!

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  5. Judy, what a well written review. I think Cue Card covered all the bases in defining many of those who supported Trump. (I don't get it and it has definitely broken up families and friendships). I liked this memoir but, Vance is one of the very few who grew up as he did that have risen to his level. I don't know what the answer is either.

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    1. Thank you Diane. Hopefully part of the answer is to keep trying to understand ALL the people of our nation. The few who rise out of poverty and dysfunction are too few. I wish there was a way for more to do so. Still learning.

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