Nancy’s Pick
November 2016
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
J.D.Vance
Published June 28, 2016
J.D. Vance’s book is a memoir of growing up in a family whose roots are of Scots-Irish decent in Appalachia. His family’s history is one of enduring poverty and hardship. He tells stories about his life growing up in a tumultuous home that is at times normal, humorous, and humanizing, but also one that is graphic, disturbing, and unpredictable. Life growing up in Appalachia might leave a person open to harsh criticism and stereotype, yet the author Vance reveals his childhood and upbringing to make a clear distinction between perception and reality. J.D. Vance’s story is of the struggles of white working class Americans in the post-industrial United States. He offers a message of hope by writing his story of how he went from growing up poor in Ohio’s Rust Belt, to spending time in schools in Kentucky and Ohio, serving in the Marines, graduating from college, and on to Yale Law School.
J.D. Vance, born in Middletown, Ohio,, moves frequently among homes in Ohio to Jackson, Kentucky. Vance describes his grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw, as the people in his life that offer him stability amid the craziness of his home life with his unstable mother. His grandparents marry in their early teens, leave Kentucky, and like many others travel the “hillbilly highway” from Appalachia to take jobs in the Midwest’s industrial hubs. They settle in Middletown, Ohio where his Papaw finds good paying work as a mechanic. Both grandparents have many personal problems while raising their three children, but both love their children and grandchildren.
The author writes that it is his grandparents and other white-working class peoples’ hope that their jobs will propel the next generation. J.D. Vance tells of the decline of jobs in Ohio Rust Belt for the next
forty years and the effect on the future generations of white-working class groups.
While J.D. Vance achieves the American Dream, he recognizes that others in similar situations need guidance and mentors. His is an important message about the keys to reaching the American Dream.
Hillbilly Elegy is an informative read into the current discussion of the challenges facing white-working class people. The personal narrative is that even a poor hillbilly from the rust belt can achieve the American Dream. Family, mentors, school support, government programs are important, but personal responsibility is the key.