Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance. 

3/5 rating. 

Book #25 of 2020. Read April 28, 2020.

This is an interesting look into the life of a so-called “hillbilly”, and an overview of the cultural reasons for the degradation of families and the communities in rural, old coal towns of Ohio and Kentucky.

J.D. is now a Yale graduate and a lawyer, but his upbringing was a tumultuous one filled with domestic violence; constantly changing homes and circumstances; and drug and alcohol abuse: but just enough familial and community support to escape.

I think this is a good book to read if you are looking to better understand the hardships that are affecting the white working-class. While it is not the full explanation of the current Conservative movement and subsequent Trump election as has been asserted by some Liberal pundits looking for answers of what happened in the last election, it is worth a read!

I think it might shed a light on the quiet, difficult lives that so many of the less-fortunate are forced to overcome. I hope that maybe it will bring a little more understanding into what continues to become a more fraught divide between the left and right: a chasm which helps no one and leaves far too many people behind!

Quotes:

“There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It’s hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don’t need to make it even harder on each other.”

“Many of the sermons I heard spent as much time criticizing other Christians as anything else. Theological battle lines were drawn, and those on the other side weren’t just wrong about biblical interpretation, they were somehow unchristian.”

“That settled the matter. Apparently I didn’t have to worry about being gay anymore. Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about Mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about.

In my new church, on the other hand, I heard more about the gay lobby and the war on Christmas than about any particular character trait that a Christian should aspire to have.”

“Drug addiction was a disease, and just as I wouldn’t judge a cancer patient for a tumor, so I shouldn’t judge a narcotics addict for her behavior. At thirteen, I found this patently absurd, and Mom and I often argued over whether her newfound wisdom was scientific truth or an excuse for people whose decisions destroyed a family. Oddly enough, it’s probably both: Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it.”

“[I]t was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, ‘They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.’”

“Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it – not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.”

“I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the ‘Obama economy’ and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions.”

“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.”

“One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.”

“I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.”

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