I was able to walk into the library and get a copy of Hillbilly Elegy - meaning it no longer carries the crazy impossible-to-borrow best seller (or borrower?) status it did for so long. Still, I hadn't read it before so it was new to me.
Hillbilly Elegy was a book that was on my want-to-read list, then it was taken off. Then at some point it made it back on. Like many best sellers, I was a bit apprehensive. Some of the criticism in the reviews also steered me away.
But the author lived fairly nearby where I live for much of his life and there was lots of positive about the book. Since I could walk in and get a copy, I did.
I was glad I did as the book was overall quite good. The author being native to the area I now call home and looking at the events and dates in the book - it is very possible our paths may have crossed. Not that I have likely ever met him or talked to him, but he wrote about places and things that are very nearby. While his upwardly mobile path sent him to live in San Francisco, my more lateral path sent me to live in the same rust belt area he called home. Although from the small amount I've read about him since finishing the book, it appears he has since moved back to Ohio to start a nonprofit helping his former community. This is deserving of praise as he now has the background and probably finances to live just about anywhere.
The book doesn't start off that well. The first few chapters are somewhat disjointed and lurchy. He introduces many characters - some of which feature prominently in the book and some of which do not. I had a hard time following many of them and the similar colloquial names did not help.
After those first few chapters, it almost seemed like the author got a different editor as the flow of the writing smoothed out considerably. The narrative started to form as the story began to build.
The story itself is one of J.D. Vance's movement within a transplanted Kentucky hillbilly family - his transformation from a poor and degraded section of Middletown, Ohio to a Yale-educated lawyer.
Some of the complaints I saw about the book took on a racial tone or that he was speaking for only one brand of hillbilly. I think this is unfortunate as he was telling his own story - pointing out what worked for him and what he saw as unsuccessful. One could lob the same accusations at Lac Su for I Love Yous Are for White People as the tale is similar. I never got the impression from the book that he was stating as fact that other people will be able to copy his success directly. But what leads to failure is often much easier to predict and duplicate.
Sadly, many have read and interpreted the book with a political slant. Donald Trump's election to the White House was coincidental to the release of the book, but unless the author has clairvoyance that he doesn't share, the 2016 election was unknown when the book was written. Despite what The Huffington Post or Fox News would like us to believe, not everything is political. His story is an interesting personal narrative - I think it is better to leave it at that.
Outside of the dramatic story, what struck me most was his interaction with some of the more elite of society while at Yale. He describes going to a Cracker Barrel restaurant with some of his classmates who had presumably never been to one before - or any of its ilk of restaurants. To them, it is merely “a greasy public health crisis.” Cracker Barrel is not my favorite places, but on the list of eating establishments I would consider “a greasy public health crisis,” it would not be near the top of the list.
What I found terrifying in this section is the people who consider Cracker Barrel “a greasy public health crisis” are the same people who are, by in large, writing our laws, interpreting our laws and running major corporations in the country. I work with some people who come from privileged background, and I can't think of any of them who don't occasionally go to eat fast food or cheap Chinese take-out. Treating Cracker Barrel as little more than barnyard fodder demonstrates a segment of society that is grossly out of touch with not just the poor and lower-middle class, but even some who would be considered rich.
I can only hope that this is one of a few exaggerations in the book.
Which brings up my main criticism of the text - I think he misses a big point, or doesn't make it forcefully enough.
Everybody makes mistakes and just about everybody makes a few doozies while growing up. What separates the rich from everyone else (or possibly what separates the poor from everyone else) is the ability to recover from those mistakes. The rich have an impossibly large safety net. The poor may have to rely on an overburdened court system which constantly sees similar people continue to make mistakes well into adulthood.
I don't mean that killing a carload of friends while drinking and driving should not have consequences for either the rich or poor. But being able to safely fail is an incredibly important part of learning as anyone grows up.
Peak behind the curtain of the wealthy Yale Law School students and I'm convinced things aren't quite as clean as what the author paints it out to be. Shake those rich family trees hard enough and a few surprises are bound to fall out. But the ability to work through that, to recover from mistakes has a sliding scale from the rich, through the middle-class, to the poor.
Sadly, luck also plays a role. Being fortunate cannot be underestimated.
Because my copy of Hillbilly Elegy came from the library, it had been previously read by an unknown number of other people. One reader had underlined several passages and written a few notes in the margins. This is, of course, not the first time I've seen this in a library book, and I often find this maddening. I probably over-interpreted what was there, but in this instance it added just a bit to he book - knowing another person who lives in the same area of the state as J.D. Vance was highlighting sections he or she thought pertinent. It really is a small world.
"...that those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons we left behind continue to chase us."
There but for the grace of God go I.
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