Sociation Today

Book Review of

Hillbilly Elegy
by J. D. Vance

Review by

Lawrence M. Eppard
Concord University

    In Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, author J. D. Vance describes his personal journey of upward mobility against considerable odds from a childhood in poverty in economically-disadvantaged towns in Kentucky and Ohio to graduating from Yale Law School, with time in the U.S. Marine Corps and at Ohio State University along the way. In describing his own experiences, Vance sheds light on the challenging circumstances facing Appalachia and the Rust Belt, providing vivid descriptions of how those areas have been "slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction, and broken homes" (Vance, 93). He writes that he grew up poor—he described poverty as a "family tradition"—in an Ohio steel town that was once solidly-middle class but had declined to become a "hub of misery" (Vance, 4) that was "hemorrhaging jobs and hope" (Vance, 1) for as long as he could remember. In addition to describing the impact of large economic forces, Vance also details many of the (what he considers dysfunctional) aspects of Appalachian society and culture. He provides considerable detail about the problems that his family and neighbors faced, including absent fathers and single parenthood, anger and resentment, child abuse, chronic stress, incarceration, low educational attainment and failing schools, hopelessness and cynicism, marital instability, poor health and insufficient healthcare, pessimism, problematic masculinity, sexism, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, unemployment, and violence, among others. He writes that as globalization and deindustrialization stole countless jobs from Middletown and these social problems increased, the people who could afford to leave did so. For those who could not, they found themselves trapped, losing hope, and at a high risk of succumbing to these problems so prevalent in their communities. Vance argues that these problems are largely rooted in "hillbilly culture" and he believes it is time for the white working class to wake up and fix their problems for themselves.

    In surveying the reactions of many commentators to Vance's book, it seems as if Elegy serves as somewhat of a Rorschach test for readers. For some, his book will confirm their individualistic and/or culture of poverty assumptions about economic disadvantage in our country. For others reading from a more structural perspective, Vance's attention to larger economic forces will resonate. While Vance highlights individualistic, subcultural, and structural explanations of Appalachian poverty in Elegy, he clearly prefers individualistic and culture of poverty arguments when explaining the plight of his family and neighbors. Vance treats hillbilly culture as something that is passed from one generation to the next and can be changed through the actions of individuals, without giving proper credit to the ways in which structural forces conspire to help create and perpetuate this culture. Vance is of course not a social scientist and this is not a rigorous empirical examination of these issues, so this is understandable. In fact, if you read carefully enough, the bones of a more nuanced analysis lie just below the surface. In Vance's account one can see the reciprocal relationship between individual choices, subcultural values, and structural forces. Vance admits on several occasions in the book that he would have likely succumbed to some of the same problems that plagued his family and neighbors if not for forces beyond his control intervening on his behalf. In a book of anecdotes initially seen through the eyes of a child and now further filtered through the worldview of a politically-conservative adult, however, that more nuanced analysis is never fully articulated. It is not ignored—he often gives as much attention to structural concerns as individualistic or subcultural ones. In fact, he oscillates back and forth between these perspectives quite a bit in this book, never truly reconciling them and giving insufficient evidence to demonstrate why individualistic and subcultural explanations are privileged in the end. Vance makes clear that he prefers a conservative interpretation of Appalachia's problems and believes that it is ultimately the responsibility of the white working class themselves to overcome their plight, a somewhat jarring conclusion for a reader who has spent 257 pages reading a narrative rooted in a variety of other equally-important perspectives.

     It is in Vance's reliance on individualistic and subcultural explanations of the plight of his family and neighbors that Elegy can be the most illuminating. As a social scientist, one finds it quite informative how much disdain Vance and his more successful family members have for those most negatively impacted by Appalachian poverty. Here we see why Vance relies more on individualistic and culture of poverty explanations; there seems to be a divide in Appalachia between those who somehow manage to avoid the worst consequences of Appalachian poverty and experience some upward mobility, and those who do not. From a structural point of view, social scientists understand that many will succeed in the face of considerable adversity, but that many will also fail—childhood poverty puts individuals at greater risk for adult poverty, but does not guarantee it. The accumulation of risk factors in poor communities has long been a subject of serious sociological inquiry, but in Vance's world many blame those who fail for succumbing to their challenging circumstances. This helps explain a variety of important contemporary issues, from the persistence of the dominant ideology of individualism among all social classes in American society to the role of the white working class in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Many in Vance's world seem angry about deindustrialization and globalization, but also have considerable contempt for many of the people around them most significantly impacted by these forces. It seems that from Vance's point of view, people are personally responsible for overcoming these obstacles, regardless of how uneven the playing field due to forces beyond their control. They are quite angry about deindustrialization and globalization, but their disdain for those who succumb to their circumstances seems to prevent the kinds of fully-developed structural perspectives that could lead to political engagement that helps rather than perpetuates Appalachian poverty. Vance himself has internalized the dominant ideology, believing that social welfare policies supported by Democrats "weren’t all they were cracked up to be" (Vance, 140) due to the lazy people he saw around him depending upon welfare instead of low-wage work. It is no wonder the white working class is abandoning the Democratic Party, given Vance's negative view of those who lose out in the economic game and must turn to welfare. I suspect that, while not in Vance's case, the association by working-class whites of welfare with African Americans also plays a significant role.

     At different points in the book Vance argues from individualistic, subcultural, and structural perspectives when explaining the plight of those in his world. He has a difficult time reconciling these perspectives, often falls back on individualistic and subcultural explanations, and is often much less critical than he should be about these issues and his own biases. When Vance sees poor Appalachian welfare recipients with cell phones and T-bone steaks he could not afford himself, he is angry with the welfare recipients instead of casting a critical eye on a low-wage labor market that is so bad it makes welfare attractive. When a coworker voluntarily and unnecessarily misses work and needed wages despite a pregnant girlfriend to help care for, his coworker’s lack of work ethic is solely his fault. Vance admits that he did not meet the same fate as those around him because of forces beyond his control intervening on his behalf. He believes he would have had many of the same problems in adulthood that people like his mother (Bev) experience if it were not for his grandparents (Mamaw and Papaw) and sister (Lindsay) shielding him from the world around him, yet he criticizes those who likely did not have such intervention for meeting worse fates. He states that, "Whatever talents I have, I nearly squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me" (Vance, 2). He later notes that, "Thanks to Mamaw, I never saw only the worst of what our community offered, and I believe that saved me. There was always a safe place and a loving embrace if ever I needed it. Our neighbors’ kids couldn’t say the same" (Vance, 149). He says that his life would have been "utterly hopeless" (Vance, 205) without his grandparents’ intervention. Vance seems lucky to have been shielded by his grandparents and his sister, all of whom protected him from many of the destructive actions of his mother and other people in his life. Any one of his mother’s numerous issues, from a revolving door of questionable men to her drug addiction to violent bouts of abuse, could have seriously impacted Vance's life chances. The author spends time at the end of the book describing how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) negatively impact people well into adulthood, and the ways in which chronic stress can alter children’s brains, yet maintains an individualistic worldview concerning Appalachian poverty. Vance allows for the fact that our childhood experiences impact our adult years in one breath, but not in another, sometimes oscillating back and forth within the same sentence—of his mother, for instance, he says that, "There is room for both anger at Mom for the life she chooses and sympathy for the childhood she didn’t" (Vance, 238). He absolves children of blame for their circumstances while criticizing adults, somehow expecting that they will shed their cumulative experiences on their 18th birthdays.

    Vance acknowledges the work of scholars such as Raj Chetty and others who have demonstrated that social mobility rates are better and poverty rates are lower in many other wealthy nations, work that clearly demonstrates the positive impact of effective government policies—yet states that government is not the answer to Appalachia’s problems. His analysis would have been more effective had he given more credit to the turns of fate that, due to no actions of his own, helped him avoid the fate of others in similar circumstances. Without the intervention of Mamaw and Papaw—who were themselves saved by leaving economically-depressed Jackson, KY due to an unplanned pregnancy at the ages of 13 and 17 for Middletown, OH, an area that at the time had more opportunities—and Lindsay, might he have met the same fate? Might Vance have been unprepared for college had Papaw not drilled him in mathematics on a weekly basis as a child? Vance himself argues that "despite all of the environmental pressures from my neighborhood and community, I received a different message at home. And that just might have saved me" (Vance, 60). Why is Vance so critical of the "learned helplessness" of those in his community, something he admits he was only able to overcome in the U.S. Marines Corps? Might the author have been plagued by some of the same demons as his mother had Lindsay not taken over the role of mother in his house, a house that for a period of time had no adults present whatsoever? Vance strongly suggests that this is the case throughout the book, yet is critical of others for failing to personally overcome circumstances that he admits he did not personally overcome himself. He constantly oscillates between understanding how economic disadvantage ensnares people on one hand, and condemning them for being ensnared on the other. Rather than providing a convincing argument contradicting the existence a relationship between structure and culture, he seems simply to prefer to downplay structural explanations due to his own worldview. These different perspectives are present but never truly reconciled in Elegy, and Vance is clear that his own worldview is politically-conservative and individualistic.

     Like a 2016 version of a Horatio Alger story, the likely message that most readers will take away from Hillbilly Elegy is that subcultures and the social structure are not connected and the white working class has only themselves to blame for their problems. This is unfortunate, because the ways in which individuals and subcultures are intertwined with structural forces, while never fully articulated by Vance, are not only supported by social science but quite evident in the world Vance himself describes. Vance makes a strong case that extremely challenging circumstances are likely to ensnare even the most well-intentioned people, and he was very lucky it did not happen to him. His narrative suggests a strong relationship between structure and culture, yet his analysis consistently prioritizes the latter. After making arguments suggesting such a complex relationship throughout the book, he then puzzlingly rejects those arguments. This book is very useful resource for those willing to heed the deeper message. Late in Elegy Vance discusses the luck he has experienced in life:

"There were many thumbs put on my scale. When I look back at my life, what jumps out is how many variables had to fall in place in order to give me a chance. There was my grandparents’ constant presence. . . Even with her faults, Mom instilled in me a lifelong love of education and learning. My sister always protected me. . . There were teachers, distant relatives, and friends. Remove any of these people from the equation, and I’m probably screwed" (Vance, 239).

Vance later stated that, "Thinking about [my life] now, about how close I was to the abyss, gives me chills. I am one lucky son of a bitch" (Vance, 253). Considerable sociological evidence supports the notion that structural forces interact with subcultural values and individual actions to create significant risk for the most isolated and economically-disadvantaged Americans, like the Appalachians who Vance so dearly loves. Many will turn out fine due to a combination of intervening factors, many not of their own choosing, as well as a healthy dose of luck. This is the take-home message from Elegy, and despite Vance's contradictory worldview, this deeper message makes this book well worth reading.

Reference

Vance, J.D. (2016). Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: HarperCollins.