Penna Dexter

An important book landed at #1 this summer on the non-fiction New York Times bestseller list. It’s currently #3. Its title is  Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Culture and Family in Crisis. This book is important right now because it helps us understand the lives of a people, a whole culture in Appalachia whose circumstances and problems weigh heavily in this election cycle.

The author, J.D. Vance, is 31 years old. He was born and grew up in southwestern Ohio’s rust belt. His roots are in a place he calls “the holler” in Jackson, Kentucky. He escaped the life that prevails there because he had a tough grandmother — Mamaw — who made him study and created a few boundaries. He joined the Marine Corps, he went to college, and then to Yale Law School. Now he’s a principal at a leading Silicon Valley investment form.

Throughout Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance sprinkles commentary and facts about the working class white population in Appalachia and the rust belt of America. He points out in his introduction that, “as surveys have found, working class whites are the most pessimistic group in America.” He continues, “As the manufacturing center of the industrial Midwest has hollowed out, the white working class has lost both its economic security and the stable home and family life that comes with it.” Many of these folks eschew any kind of welfare, though he says, “a large minority was content to live off the dole.”

The people in Appalachia talk a lot about hard work, but there’s really not enough of it – at least not the kind they feel capable of. Many young men, though employed, are way underemployed. J.D. Vance writes of 20-hour workweeks and also of the prevalence of alcohol and drug addiction, including that of his own mother. He also writes of homes like his where there is a “revolving door of father figures.” He describes the fighting and yelling, even physical violence that is common in many households. All of this contributes to a vicious cycle of instability.

Young people growing up here have trouble finding the motivation to seek a better life. They claim religion. But J.D. Vance writes, “Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do.” He says churches provide a great support for “the faithful” when they face difficulties. But, he writes, “in a part of the country slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction, and broken homes, church attendance has fallen off.”

The story of J.D.’s journey through this is a good read and I recommend it, if you can stomach some salty language.

The hillbillies J.D. Vance writes about are patriotic. They love America. They used to be Democrats. During the Reagan years most voted Republican. They and people like them in other parts of the country are heavily impacting the presidential race. J.D. Vance’s book helps us understand them.