As ya’ll know, I am a native Kentuckian. I am as Kentucky as bourbon. That is why I was curious about this book, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.
Apparently, a lot of people, especially Kentuckians, got in their feelings about this book. You can watch the movie to get a similar effect; it follows the book relatively closely, but it is the story of a young man, a direct descendant of a long line of Kentuckians that had moved to Ohio for more work, but the town in Ohio was basically a microcosm of Kentucky and they all visited Kentucky often. He had a tough childhood but he was reflecting on how much better his was than his mother’s and grandparents’, and unlike his family, went on to receive an ivy league education and became a lawyer and seemingly broke the cycle. (Although, his mother was a nurse, no one else had an education, so that part needed some clarification.)
Vance’s story was that his parents split when he was young. The movie did not touch on the fact that he did have a relationship with his father, although he never lived with him full-time. The bulk of the book and the entirety of the movie focuses on the relationship with Vance and his mother, sister and grandparents. His mother was a drug addict that went from boyfriend dragging him and his sister along for the ride. His grandmother, “Mamaw” did not approve. (For the record, as Vance described and I can attest to, it is pronounced MA’AM- aww in hillbilly.) At one point, Mamaw started raising the children herself, but her own marriage with their grandpa was strained. They did not even live in the same house although they did often eat dinner together. The overall point he was making, at least as I interpreted it, was of generational poverty and trauma and breaking that cycle and how it effects people and families moving forward. This is a topic I have a lot of interest in, obviously.
People got all upset because they deduced that since he was from Kentucky, he grew up the way he did and was a self-proclaimed “hillbilly” that he was somehow lumping all Kentuckians into the same mold of “hillbilly” or “white trash” or drug addled in some way.
First of all, I never felt that way. He did point out that the story of his childhood and adolescence was not that different than a lot of his peers, but I still do not even see how that equates to “all Kentuckians are hillbillies.”
Second, he never even said “hillbilly” was bad. He was simply ruminating on the meanings of hillbilly and whether or not that culture even still exists in its true form because of the changes to modern society and that so many people feel as though they have to abandon that way of life to make it in the world. For example, a lot of regions where “hillbillies” reside have few jobs, under performing schools, no or slow access to internet and technology, high rates of drug addiction and little to no prospects that any of those aforementioned problems will improve.
It is appropriate to mention that I consider myself “half-hillbilly,” and even if I had not, I would after reading this book. That is hillbilly, not redneck, dear. The nuances are subtle, but definitely there. It is really a whole other blog post, but for example, rednecks leave their Christmas lights up year-round, but hillbillies take down their Christmas lights by New Year’s because they will be damned if they will pay extra on their light bills. Rednecks listen to country music and hillbillies listen to bluegrass.
Rednecks display a Confederate flag and call it heritage. Hillbillies are noticeably distrustful of any government, but the confederacy never did them any favors either, so screw ‘em. Hillbillies reuse everything. You don’t know what is in that Country Crock tub until you open it up. It is like a hillbilly version of Schrodinger’s cat. It could be butter, it could be cornbread, it could be sketti. You don’t know until you open up that tub. Rednecks use… well, I don’t really know what rednecks use because I am not one, but you get the idea.
But I digress and return back to the discussion at hand.
Another group of people got upset since Vance is a republican and a politician so they felt he was pushing the Trump agenda.
The book came out before Trump had even secured the party nomination in the 2016 election, so that is a moot point. They were just upset that Vance is a republican and they did not want him to be.
Listen, I am not saying I agreed with all his political views— hell, he even seemed confused about his political ideologies in my opinion—but he never said one word about Trump or the upcoming election nor did I feel as though he necessarily would have supported Trump based on what I read, so I felt that whole argument came out of left field and is null and void. On the contrary, he even questioned if it makes sense that Kentucky continues to be a “red state.” Honestly, I am not going there. Not now anyway. But I did feel as though Vance encouraged people to make their own decisions independent of partisan politics and to challenge the presented conventions and I respect and share that view as a journalist (and hillbilly). I felt as though that whole argument was beyond the point of the work and I was really frustrated that is where critiques of the book went.
Who am I to say this? Well, I am a freelance journalist, a persuasive writer and have a degree in literature, but hey… I would rather walk on my lips than brag on myself.
Vance is actually the portrait of the American dream; from humble beginnings, he made a better life for himself and broke the cycle of generational poverty and trauma. I am actually quite appalled and mystified why this book, and subsequent movie, is drawing so much ire. I think it was Carl Jung that theorized that we are typically offended most by those ideals that we feel apply to us in some way. Using this line of thinking, I surmise that these particular critics are probably hillbillies or rednecks themselves, or insecure in their own voting records and are too uncomfortable to come to terms with it. Or to put it into hillbilly speak so that even the hillbillies in the back can understand, these so-and-sos from up yonder a ways, lookin’ down from their high horses, don’t have the gumption God gave a piss ant and so they are just fixin’ to stir the stink into the shit.
That is their prerogative I suppose. But for me, it is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot and it makes me get my red up.
Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?
(Ok, I promise I’m done with the hillbilly talk. At least for now.)
Keep Reading,
Megan
