Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance

J.D. Vance is a self-described hillbilly.  He grew up in an industrial town in Ohio, but all of his roots, his extended family, and all the networks were in the Kentucky hills.  His family fit all the Appalachian stereotypes of clannishness, poverty, dysfunction, and well as loyalty and religion.  Yet out of the poverty, domestic instability, and negativity he grew up in, Vance ended up a U.S. Marine and a Yale Law School grad.  In Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance tells the story of his family, his education and growth, and the story of America the he represents.

On one level, this is a dull memoir.  Vance himself admits he hasn't really done much to make a name for himself.  He says, "I didn't write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary.  I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grew up like me."  So we hear a lot about how he grew up: his mother's serial marriages and addictions, his grandparents tough love and steadfastness, his summers in the Appalachian hills where his family comes from, and his maturing against the odds. 

Aside from his family story, which is labyrinthine, sometimes tragic, and sometimes inspiring, he sets his family's experiences into the larger context of American social trends.  His family's story is played out over and over again in the 20th and 21st centuries, starting with the migration from the hills to the manufacturing centers, to economic turmoil, drug addiction, and cultural decay.  The persistent poverty and poor health and educational standards of Appalachia are often overlooked but have a huge impact on the region and on the nation. 

Vance doesn't call on big policy changes, but calls for the culture to change.  When he meets a teenage boy whose life is so much like his own, Vance writes that "any chance he has lies with the people around him--his family, me, my kin, the people like us, and the broad community of hillbillies."  To address the long list of problems, "public policy can help, but there is no government that can fix these problems for us. . . . These problems [of crime, drug abuse, and related issues] were not created by governments or corporations or anyone else.  We created them, and only we can fix them." 

Vance's voice is encouraging and hopeful, reminding us--whether we're from the hills, the coasts, or the cities in between--that family support and self-reliance go a long way against the negative tides of society and culture.