Reviews: Hillbilly Elegy (6)

This soon to be major motion picture is a must read.
An important and honest read about American politics and offers an insight as to why people put their trust into Trump.

When I first opened this book, from the reviews, I thought it was going to be a lot more of a politics book and a lot less of a memoir than it was. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

That's not to say that it isn't a political book. It is a brilliant reflection of how the white working class in America seem to have shot themselves in the foot - supporting a party that supports the wealthy. Vance shows, through the deeply personal and sometimes upsetting story of his family, how this may have come about. We follow his grandparents first, through failed pregnancies and alcohol abuse, and then his parents, and his own family life, with all the upheaval that came with that (including drug abuse and some physical abuse). We see how his home town has decayed, and we see how this is reflected in the communities. Vance then brings it around and adds a political spin to it.

The book also provides an interesting parallel with many areas of the UK where, similarly to Vance's home town, the industry and jobs have dried up, and the politics have swung to the right - not always to the benefit of the people who chose to vote that way.

Overall, it is a very interesting and moving book.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. I enjoyed the personal element and family anecdotes, but they were interspersed with 'sociobabble' - analyses and comment that I felt would have been better suited to a thesis.
Truth be told, I've stopped more than once, because I was bored. I'm also finding this account somewhat repetitive, but I had to finish it today for our book group discussion.
It has been compared with The Glass Castle, but I was definitely more invested in that memoir.

What I enjoyed of Vance's accounts were the personal family stories; his Gran nearly murdering someone at the age of 12 and his experiences in the marine boot camp.
His family was very poor, but not just by financial standards, as J.D. himself explains later on, they lacked education in basic nutrition and suffered from severely rotting teeth due to an over-consumption of Mountain Dew and other sweet soda drinks. They did not realise how their violent and abusive behaviour impacted on their children, causing stresses that many never totally recovered from. They passed on what they had known and continued a cycle from which there appeared to be no escape.

This book has been touted as the explanation for why people voted for Trump, but having read it I can't say I am any the wiser. I can see that Obama was mistrusted and a lot of false news intensified that, but to vote for a president who was obviously so entitled, seems to me to go against all that Mr Vance had been trying to explain about his background.

In spite of my criticisms, I have learned a lot about this area of America and how its inhabitants think. My book group gave it a mixed response, between 3 and 4 stars; some interesting discussion.

James David Vance recounts his life up to and including his graduation from Yale Law School. If there is one pervading element of the human condition within that time then it would be the act of struggle. Born in Middletown, Ohio, in 1984, the now forty year old was 32 years old at the time of publication of his best seller, Hillbilly Elegy. He writes of hardships experienced by the white working class, summarised by Vance, in the Appalachian geography of Ohio, as a Hillbilly tagline. Vance speaks of familial dysfunction, a mother drug-addict who collects husbands like a child collecting Pokémon cards. The current running mate of Donald Trump for Vice President of the United States reveals his relationship to family, his close ties to his grandparents, known as Mamaw and Papaw, who raised him through a turbulent life without much of a future to embrace. The prose is simplified, no vocabulary that requires defining by reaching for the dictionary, concise and as straightforward as you are ever likely to get. He takes his surname, Vance, from the family name of his Mamaw, Papaw and Mom (Bev), even though his biological father is a Bowman, a Donald Bowman. The cover of the paperback has a quote from the Independent that states: . . . a great insight into Trump and Brexit’. This is a far fetched conclusion by The Independent that isn’t evidenced by what the reader reads. There are moments of prose that reveal Vance’s immaturity, such as his uncouth masculinity, measured, for example, by violence amongst working class individuals, a violence which he himself is likely to carry out, or his mistaken notions of achievement and success. He experiments with drugs, though how often isn’t mentioned. J.D. Vance reveals the underbelly of America, an America that, in his part of Ohio or nearby Kentucky, has lost its industry, has lost many of its citizens to drugs, crime, homelessness and other associated outcomes of a failed capitalism in a nation known for its total capitalism.

I really enjoyed this book.

There are two things going on with this book. The first is a straightforward account of one man’s growing up poor and disadvantaged in Kentucky in the 80s as part of a hillbilly culture. The second theme, is the recurring analysis in the book as to the causes, extent and solutions to to the issues that he draws out along the way.

This is a really well written book that feels more like a conversation. It flows chronologically and so you get a moving account of what it was like to be from the background he describes. The stories are acute and compelling, but never over the top, just plain honest and sincere. There is just the right amount of introspection.

As the book moves on, the author, by dint of maturity, education, experience and reflection brings together his past and explains it against public policy and politics. The story does not get dry here. Rather, the characters we have been introduced to are now examined not from a personal, anecdotal level, but from a wider, societal lens.

A great book about moving through society, how people aspire and what holds them back and urges them forward.

I enjoyed learning about J.D. Vance. He seems down to earth and someone that learns from his experience. I loved hearing about his grandparents and relatives how they help Vance when he needed them the most. I like learning about his home life and his community, and that it wasn't until he went into the military that he learn about how to rise above his past. He also talks about his experience at Yale and what he learned about class in the United States, and the difference between the Higher Class and the rest of us.
This was quite an eye opening story and I truly enjoy listening to Vance talk about his life and what he thinks is important.