Usually, a writer chooses a book to review because they’re interested in the topic or the author. Sometimes, though, it’s because it’s written by the person Trump chose to be his deputy in the US presidential race. So, with that in mind, I read Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir by J.D. Vance.
Hillbilly Elegy is well written; Vance knows how to tell a good story.
But I hated it.
The book is ostensibly about his impoverished upbringing in Appalachia, but it’s actually about his relatively well-off upbringing not in Appalachia. You can probably tell who’s read it and who hasn’t based on whether they refer to him as working class and Appalachian (if so, they only read the blurb or the hype), or not (they read the actual book).
Vance’s childhood
J.D. Vance had a difficult childhood, as he makes clear in Hillbilly Elegy, although not an impoverished one. He was surrounded by violence, substance abuse, and ever-changing parental relationships.
Vance talks lovingly about his extended family, his Mamaw and uncles being particularly adored. He speaks breathlessly about the violence they all committed, seemingly romanticising the continual underlying threat of angry explosions he grew up around. He also speaks uncritically about his grandfather impregnating his grandmother when she was only 13, and him just 16. Even beyond the issue of criminality, this is unquestionably abusive behaviour. The pregnancy resulted in a baby who “didn’t survive her first week”.
Vance later blames his Mamaw for his Papaw’s abusive violence, saying, “I couldn’t believe that mild-mannered Papaw, whom I adored as a child, was such a violent drunk. His behavior was due at least partly to Mamaw’s disposition. She was a violent non-drunk.”
While we all create our own narratives that help us to deal with the bad behaviour of those we love and rely on, publishing these ideas as an adult is really not to be encouraged.
Despite being a relatively easy read, by about 1/3 of the way through Hillbilly Elegy, I was incredibly tired of it. But I’m as susceptible to the Sunk Cost Fallacy as anyone else, so I forced myself to pick it back up. I’m not thrilled at my decision, in all honesty.
Hillbilly Elegy is a mass of contradictions
One of the hardest things to deal with in Hillbilly Elegy is the hypocrisy apparent in Vance’s views on social issues.
Vance speaks approvingly of families migrating for better jobs… but only between states. He doesn’t see any contradiction with his rather less approving view on migrating over national borders for the same purpose. He also doesn’t appreciate the hypocrisy of having sympathy for his Mamaw and Papaw facing discrimination and “not fitting in” in their new home when compared with his own lack of sympathy for modern-day migrants from south of the border who face the same.
In terms of socioeconomic issues, Vance speaks of the terrible lives of poverty he witnessed, but criticises those who survived that for not fixing themselves and living the corporate life he (with his relatively wealthy family background) went on to achieve. He either cannot or will not look beyond his idea that it’s all a matter of individual will and determination, describing “Too many young men immune to hard work” and “a willingness to blame everyone but yourself”.
Vance has, without doubt, succeeded in his studies and career and has achieved impressive things.
However, by crediting his exceptional achievements to mere hard work and determination, he repeatedly criticises the people who continue to struggle financially – many of whom he grew up with – as lazy, feckless and defeatist. He ignores the many structural and personal factors that get in the way of people being allowed and enabled to achieve.
Vance speaks of the terrible lives of poverty he witnessed, but criticises those who survived that for not fixing themselves and living the corporate life he (with his relatively wealthy family background) went on to achieve
Ultimately, Vance doesn’t seem to recognise that the thing about exceptional achievements is that they are the exception.
There’s always somebody willing to sell out their own people to feel better, or to appeal to a more powerful group of people. People who cause harm to more marginalised folks by ingratiating themselves with those who want to hear negative things about an oppressed group they want a legit reason to hate.
Vance may be one of those.
He’s feted as a living example of the American Dream. But the American Dream is a myth.
A privileged-but-troubled man achieved things? Good for him. But he uses his own success as a way to batter those he considers below him. It is positive that Vance is talking about class in America, a topic many Americans seem to inexplicably shy away from – though it may only feel that way as a reader from the class-inequality-ridden UK. But his attitude to people who have never had a single opportunity in their life veers between patronising and offensive.
Why read Hillbilly Elegy?
If you want to understand the mindset of J.D. Vance, forcing yourself through the pages of Hillbilly Elegy might be something to subject yourself to. If he becomes the VP, it might be especially important. But, on reading this text, you do get the impression that he’s telling a story – entertainingly, perhaps, but to serve a purpose. Sure, it’s his autobiography, but it reads like it’s got an agenda; which always makes it harder to trust the choices an author makes about the stories to include, and how they’re relayed.
Vance demonises and criticises anyone he disapproves of, in the same fluent way he moves through political life as some kind of chameleon who’ll say what needs to be said, to whoever he needs to say it.
So to sum up his contradictory narratives, I’ll leave you with the eyebrow-raising words of Vance himself: “If I leave you with the impression that there are bad people in my life, then I am sorry, both to you and to the people so portrayed. For there are no villains in this story. There’s just a ragtag band of hillbillies struggling to find their way—both for their sake and, by the grace of God, for mine.”