Has anybody read Hillbilly Elegy?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I lack the discipline to write a book report, but if you read it I would appreciate your thoughts. I am about three quarters of the way through. It is an interest look at the lives in the Holler.

[exboyfil]

1. Yes but take it with a grain of salt

I understand the psychology since I come originally from West Virginia, but went to school in Southern California and gulf coast Mississippi (which is like a different state by the way).

I have seen several observations about it being basically I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, so why can't others. I come from a similar but not quite so disfunctional background, and my conclusions have changed as I have gotten older (two time Reagan voter, George Bush, against Clinton twice, and the first time for George W. Bush). It took the Iraqi War and my grandma going Title 19 Medicaid LTC to change my attitude. My family received a half million dollars in welfare that they fail to recognize or change their voting patterns based on. I am not such a hypocrite.

I can only say that my dad made two decisions in his life that benefited me greatly. The first was moving to So Cal. The second was moving away from So Cal. I have lived in many places, but the two worst were Huntington WVa and Orange County. If I was independently wealthy and did not have to drive anyplace, I would love living in Orange County though. Can't say the same for WVa.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. I loved Mamaw. She was a great lady.

And for all his bootstraps without Mamaw who knows how his life would have turned out.

[exboyfil]

25. My Mamaw was my dad

I was conceived out of wedlock while my dad was married to another woman who was the mother of my half brother. I was separated from him when a baby. I don't think he was even around for my birth.

Sometime after my birth though he came back for my mom and me. That made all of the difference. I can't imagine what my life would have been like being raised by my mom as a single mother. My dad instilled in me a love for books and education. I would have never had that influence from any other member of my family. I am the first member of my family to graduate from college (no siblings or cousins graduated from college). I think my daughter is the first of that generation to graduate from college (my nephew is on track to graduate after five years). I may have one child of a cousin who has graduated from college.

I don't think the writer has any appreciation for what it is like when you don't have a "mamaw".

[cilla4progress]

2. I did.

It was an interesting personal story paralleled with social commentary on the group that supported trump.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I liked the anecdote about the guy who was perpetually tardy and got fired.

He blamed the "Obama economy" for not being able to find a new job.

His grandfather and grandmother seemed like great people. Her counsel when he was a young boy and thought he was gay was priceless and hilarious.

[cilla4progress]

5. Yes,

quite the sense of entitlement. The dynamic between white working class and nonwhites explains a lot about this recent election.

Too bad political leaders in those areas weren't more tuned in or concerned for their populations. I hold people like Joe Manchin accountable. Do they lead, or just stoke division?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. He cited studies that showed they were the most pessimistic of groups when other groups have it ...

He cited studies that showed they were the most pessimistic of groups when other groups have it worse.

[BeyondGeography]

6. The grandma was pretty cool, mom was a nightmare and the author won't vote for a Democrat

if you put a gun to his head.

The mayhem episodes are what I remember. It's an honest book that way.

If you're 3/4 of the way through the best parts are over.

White Trash, by Nancy Isenberg, is a much more illuminating treatment of the mindset.

[cilla4progress]

8. A friend in KY recommended

Deep South, by Paul Theroux.

I forgot or missed that the author doesn't vote Dem. Does he explain why? It may be he's a bit of a Randian... pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Though he does admit his advantage being raised by someone such as Mamaw and Papaw.

Wasn't clear to me how his mother went down the wrong road...opiates, etc. She had been valedictorian and had a good job as a nurse!

[BeyondGeography]

10. His voting preferences aren't part of the book but he talks about them elsewhere

He voted for McMullin in 2016. Also wrote an op-ed piece in the NYT where he took a swipe at Obamacare. Yes, there is an unmistakable aversion to government with Vance.

His literary treatment of his mother was a weakness in the book, IMO. He's still relatively young and I think his view of her isn't as balanced as it might be one day. Still a lot of anger there, not that it isn't warranted, but I would have liked a little more insight on her life as well.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. The college guy who dissed the military and him were the perfect clash of two archetypes.

[BeyondGeography]

17. I respect him for putting himself out there

And it is a useful book.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. Yes, but for all his self effacement he is the hero of his book.

[BeyondGeography]

19. Be interesting to see where he goes with this

He just wrote with much fanfare that he is headed back into Red America. But he's moving to Columbus, OH. Nice, civilized, deep blue college town. I find him more calculating than interesting.

[cilla4progress]

26. I agree.

[kentuck]

9. Unless he lived before 1980....

he couldn't possibly write with much authority on life in the hollers, in my opinion. The '80s and '90s were a different world.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. He was born in 1984.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. I once went on a date with a young woman from the Holler who was in Daytona Beach for Spring Break.

We went to Jai alai.

[shedevil1111]

11. me

I was suppose to go hear him speak but didn't go last minute. He is from my city

[jehop61]

12. OK read

But I found most of his family rather awful people. They fought, drank heavily, took drugs, beat their wives and destroyed a store because their child was chastised there. My family was in the same wealth class and immigrants. they instilled good moral values, taught right from wrong and raised upwardly mobile children too. No shortage of problems, but they tried to be good citizens. Sorry he had such a tough upbringing and I wasn't really enthralled with his story. Three stars.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. His grandparents seemed nice.

They saved him.

[jehop61]

21. Agreed

But his grandfather regularly beat his grandmother and the separated early on. Memaw is the heroine of this book

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. I forgot that part. My favorite anecdote is when he told her he thought he was gay.

You have to wonder how someone in that milieu summoned that kind of wisdom.

[onetexan]

30. neither was i enthralled

My father-in-law brought it last week while visiting us to let us understand better the white working class mentality and why they voted for the Orange Idiot. i read it the past 2 days and it was so graphically violent i had to breeze through some sections of it, especially the part where his mother tried to kill him chasing him in a field. Vance's description of his upbringing and the near constant dysfunction in his life is nothing i haven't heard before with the white working class. I have some coworkers who live the dysfunction on a daily basis, and yet they are proudly the professed Bible thumping, weekly church attending righteous people. The only parts i found interesting were the historical references to the mass migration of job-seeking mountain people to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. I think this young man Vance is still very much haunted by his horrific past and still grapples with it on a daily basis, as such prolonged trauma doesn't leave you. His is the classic poor-kid-did-good story, but he is no Obama, and it wasn't wise of him to compare himself to Obama - somewhat in the book, and in the NYT piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/barack-obama-and-me.html?_r=0.
Re: his last comment "On Jan. 20, the political side of my brain will breathe a sigh of relief at Mr. Obama’s departure.", i wonder if he's breathing a sigh of relief now that the most profane, ignominious president in the history of the US is wreaking havoc on our democracy.

[HootieMcBoob]

20. Try this one too

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1250085802/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490200970&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=glass+house+book&dpPl=1&dpID=51s%2BMz0lYzL&ref=plSrch

I think it talks about the problems from a different perspective.

[Hekate]

23. Only part way thru. It's personal, very raw in parts. One thing I learned that gave me pause....

How his ethnic/cultural group moved away and kept their rough culture: factory owners in another state looking for workers hired whole families and groups that knew each other.

So our great liberal idea of telling people to move away for jobs -- well, ahem. I know what it is to love a specific place, so these days I'm much more inclined to hope factory owners move to where the people are and build their solar panel plant or windmill factory there.

Vance explores how a once-viable way of life became dysfunctional. They are stuck with behavior patterns that no longer serve them. And now drugs.

It's a story of personal escape, and how crucial certain people were to that. The rest of them seem like crabs in a bucket, always pulling back the one who's trying to climb out.

For myself, who never lived further East than California, it's a piece of the American puzzle I didn't know existed until I heard Jim Webb's book-interview on NPR. I'm Irish-American, but this was a version of history I had not heard before. I highly recommend "Born Fighting: the Scots-Irish in America." Let's just say, Webb starts with the Romans and the one tribe they could never subdue. Anyone remember the two Disney tv series on the Swamp Fox and Davey Crockett? Everyone's 1950s childhood heroes were of that specific heritage.

Another piece of the puzzle, from a much different point of view, is a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: the Story of Success." The chapter is "Harlan, Kentucky." Wow.

I have to finish Hillbilly Elegy now. It's on loan from a co-worker of my husband's who is of that group. I am continually surprised at who among my friends feels this book is a family album.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Now that is what I call a book report.

[cilla4progress]

28. Awesome review

Thanks.

[exboyfil]

29. The move away for a job situation is interesting

I got to think there are a lot of factors that are different now that preclude a move. I have been through moves three times growing up. The first and third were forced without a job on the other side (sold everything and got into the car). The second was a recruited move (paid expenses, etc.).

The first reason that individuals are not as inclined to move is that the jobs on the other end are not like the factory jobs of the past. Look at the full benefits package. My dad moved for a factory job paying the equivalent of $60K today with benefits. Good luck finding such a job that you have not been recruited for (think degree).

Next is the grass was not always greener, but you did not know that. Now we have a lot more information than we had back then. The family from The Grapes of Wrath would never have left Oklahoma if they knew what was on the other end. Now you pretty much know.

As a cute aside my parents funded their first move of which I am aware (they had already had two moves before that to California and back) using a credit card. A month or so after they landed in an apartment, the credit card company representative came to their door and made them cut up the card. While they paid every dime back, they had exceeded the credit limit by a considerable margin. No computers back then to catch up with you.

[Freedomofspeech]

27. I read it several months ago.

I live among these people in Southwest PA, so nothing was surprise to me. I can't wrap my head around the fact that the author is a Republican.