Hillbilly Elegy

In this memoir, Marine veteran and Yale Law graduate J.D. Vance describes growing up in a dysfunctional family in the Rust Belt of Ohio and the influence of the rural Appalachian values instilled by his Kentucky-bred grandparents.

Admittedly, I approached this book with skepticism. Theories of social rot/moral decay rank up there with the purported impact of violent video games in terms of eye-rolling and dead-horse tropes. Nevertheless, I am glad that I gave it a chance. Vance has a powerful tale to tell, and it’s one worth hearing no matter who you are or where you come from.

With commendable candor, Vance describes the difficult circumstances faced not only by him and his family but by the economically depressed communities they inhabited as well. Raised by a drug-addicted mother and her string of short-lived husbands and boyfriends, the overweight J.D. is propped up by his fierce gun-toting grandmother and encouraged to make something of himself. He eventually does, but not without considerable difficulty, first as a Marine disdainful of authority and later as a conservative white man from a poor background at Yale.

The portrait that Vance paints of working-class white America is not a flattering one: he shows hillbilly culture to be insular, distrustful to the point of paranoid, and prone to addiction and violence. Though some have attacked him on this point – and he arguably does paint with too broad a brush — the book is not a hatchet job. Vance also talks about the loyalty shown by family and the positive influence of his grandmother, traits that served him well later in life.

If this were the extent of Hillbilly Elegy, it would be a fine example of a contemporary memoir. Unfortunately, Vance also dips his toe in the pool of sociology and political science, and these aspects of the book are far less convincing. To Vance’s credit, he creates distance between himself and the conspiracist vitriol embraced by white hillbillies. His contention that certain bureaucracies (i.e. Social Services) are ill-equipped to meet their needs is also not without merit. And yet Hillbilly Elegy is very light on solutions. Perhaps unfairly, this book was hyped as something that could explain the rise of Trumpism. By that measure, it’s a failure.

If you ignore the faltering attempts at achieving broader relevance and focus on the personal story told within, Hillbilly Elegy is an engaging, inspiring read, sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying, but never insipid or canned.

7.5/10