a critique of Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
There are some books that make us feel good. There are others that make us cry. There are books that teach us lessons. I have read books that speak directly into the situations I am facing in life. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance is a book that makes me consider my family heritage.
A friend from Facebook sent me a copy of Hillbilly Elegy. She knows of my work to combat classisim and stereotypes about the poor. In this memoir, J.D. Vance writes of his family's hillbilly heritage and how it affected him. His family roots reach to Appalachia, into an area extreme poverty, of abuses that are viewed as a normal part of life, and of self-destructive behaviors.
I could relate to much of this book. I am from Kansas, so it may sound a bit odd or even humorous; but it is true. My mother came from what she considered "the hills." If you know anything about Kansas landscape, you know there is a hill country. My mom hailed from a tiny town called Natoma in the hill country of Kansas. It was a place to which she always wanted to return. In fact, she is buried there.
My mother often talked about her naivety when coming to the "big" city of Salina - a city that now has barely over 50,000 people and would have been much smaller when she arrived in the 1950s. She had never seen an African American before arriving in Salina. She was asked by a boy if she was a virgin and answered "no" because she was thinking of the Virgin Mary. When another girl explained to her just what a virgin is, she found the boy and corrected her mistake. She left junior high in seventh grade because she was accustomed to the one-room schoolhouse she attended in Natoma and could not get used the structure of classes in the two-story edifice.
She craved that naivety for her own daughters. I probably will never forget the time when I was probably sixteen or seventeen years old, she asked me if I knew the difference between a boy and a girl. When I admitted I did - and I do mean admit, because I knew the answer she wanted and feared an angry outburst at my answer - she became frustrated and told me my sister did not know at that age. (It was common for her to compare me to my sister). Now, I'm sure my sister did, at that age, know the difference between males and females. She was probably just afraid to admit that she knew. Giving my mother the wrong answer to her questions was never a pleasant experience.
I remember her telling me when I started my period that my body was eliminating poisons. That was her definition. I was so embarrassed and asked her not to tell anyone that I had. I was heartbroken when I overheard her telling my brother and his wife that I had started my period. That broke a trust with me.
My mother's father was an alcoholic. Alcoholism was really a family problem for her family. She recalled, as a child, being sent to the town beer joint to bring him home. Abuses were also part of her family. I am unsure if her parents were ever abusive (she claimed they were not, but she also never saw her verbal abuse as abuse. She did often talk about the razor strap that was used on the back of the legs of her and her siblings if they misbehaved), but I do know abuse followed the children in her family. For her own children, the problem was her verbal and emotional abuse and narcissism in the sense that she refused to give up her control of them. She controlled her children, especially her daughters, so that she did not have to feel uncomfortable or to worry or to feel upset. This control lasted until the day she died. I turned twenty-five two months after she died.
My mother's childhood family had a bootlegger that lived down the street from them. She often told the story of how people would confuse houses and come to my mother's, small family house to buy moonshine. This prompted she and her nine brothers and sisters to post a sign that said, "The bootlegger lives over there." She came from extreme poverty. She talked about one night having potatoes and peas for supper. The next night they would have peas and potatoes. That was all they had. My mother never cared for peas in her adult life.
J.D. Vance discusses in his book the extreme, hillbilly devotion to family. That was prevalent in our family as well. He discusses a time in which his grandfather (his "adopted father," for all practical purposes) accidentally gave a family member, a child, a black eye. When another family member who had just left the home came over, that child with the black eye was made to hide in in the basement because the one who visited was no longer a part of the home.
I can relate to that story. Our family home was a home of secrets. No one was to know the control that was exhibited over my life. If anyone asked about decisions that my mother made for me, I was to tell them it was my idea. That was just the way it should be done. It was better that way. I guess it was better for me to look bad than for her.
The author writes of the endless arguments that were typical in his hillbilly home - arguments between adults, arguments between adults and children. This also was a part of my childhood, teenage years, and early adult life. It was just the way things were done. Everyone argues, everyone shouts. That was the prevalent mindset.
This mindset affected me well into my adult years. I remember when my husband and I were first married, I would shout at him and then tell him to just yell back at me. I would get so frustrated when he refused to yell back. He told me it was disrespectful, and he would not yell at me.
I could very much relate to the author's experiences of trying to overcome his reactions that stemmed from what he was taught in his childhood. As I read his experiences, I thought back to the one incident that really changed me. I've shared this before, but it's been awhile. My sons, Taliesin and Nathanael, must have been around four and two. We were sitting in the middle of our kitchen floor, doing a floor puzzle of the United States. I remember Garfield, our cat we had at the time, would not quit climbing on my lap. They were getting frustrated with the puzzle, as was I (I do not like puzzles). I was trying to keep them interested when I just became so frustrated I screamed. Everything from my past came back to me - the screaming, the anger. I just started bawling, and I kept saying, "One day, you're going to hate me. I know. It's how I feel." Of course, my sons did not know what I meant. But that experience taught me to be different than my past - to parent differently than I had been parented. I've done my best to do that.
As ironic as it sounds, while my immediate home was a war zone; my mother feared having arguments with my brothers, who had left home and were married with children of their own (children that were closer in age to me than my siblings were). We had to "keep the peace" with them. This resulted in a lot of conflict between her and me. I had different ideas than my siblings. I would not shut up about my feelings and pretend to agree with their viewpoints just to "keep the peace." To this day, I have a lot of emotional pain and rarely see my brothers or their families, even those who still live in the same city in which I live. The closeness of family that my mother pushed is no more.
One part of Hillbilly Elegy that I find particularly fascinating is the influence of Pentecostal theology. My mom was a Pentecostal. She attended a Pentecostal church as a child. She promoted that idea. She always said she was not a good Pentecostal, but she was a Pentecostal. I remember when she was admitted to the hospital before she died, and the person taking her information asked for my mother's religion, my sister told them, "Pentecostal. That is what she would want it to say."
From my experiences in traditional, Pentecostal faith; it is a religion of fear. It was a Pentecostal church that led me to four years of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress as an adult. It was the Pentecostal faith that made me feel I could never be good enough for God or His true people. I have to wonder why the traditional Pentecostal faith is such a part of hillbilly life. It is often a religion of secrets. I remember sermons at the Pentecostal church I attended in which members were admonished to not discuss things that could be perceived as negative with those outside of the church.
Hillbilly Elegy is written from the perspective of a grandson. Vance is the grandson of the hillbillies he eulogizes. He writes of his own mother's journey into drug abuse. This drug abuse caused him to turn to his grandparents - the grandparents that had not accepted their daughter but did accept her son. These were the grandparents that were abusive to their daughter, but raised him in a better way than they raised her. That leads to my greatest question about the book. How different would this book have portrayed a hillbilly elegy had it been written by his mother, their daughter? Grandchildren are always treated differently than children. I remember it from my own childhood and early adult life. I have seen other grandparents who were horribly abusive to their own children raise their grandchildren in a way of which their own children could have only dreamed.
In that sense, it is a sad book to me. Vance discusses how his relationship with his grandparents allowed him to become the person he is today. Sadly, the relationship between his mother and her parents (his grandparents) also led her to be the person she is.
Vance does promote the idea that our mindset can help us change our circumstances. While I think that is true in some cases, I believe he idealizes that mindset a bit too much. Not everyone is him. Not everyone, as he points out, has the emotional support he had from his family. He also seems to idolize the idea of money-based success - an idea that I do not support.
That said, I did enjoy the book, even though upon finishing the book last night I had very strange dreams. In one of my dreams, I had a baby. Each time I went somewhere, I felt I had to hide the baby in the car so no one would see her. I think the memories of hiding, of family secrets, of family pain were brought to the surface again. I do agree with what Vance hints at in the book - the secrets and the pain are never fully healed. They are always there. We can feel better about them, but they will always come through at different times throughout our lives.
A friend from Facebook sent me a copy of Hillbilly Elegy. She knows of my work to combat classisim and stereotypes about the poor. In this memoir, J.D. Vance writes of his family's hillbilly heritage and how it affected him. His family roots reach to Appalachia, into an area extreme poverty, of abuses that are viewed as a normal part of life, and of self-destructive behaviors.
I could relate to much of this book. I am from Kansas, so it may sound a bit odd or even humorous; but it is true. My mother came from what she considered "the hills." If you know anything about Kansas landscape, you know there is a hill country. My mom hailed from a tiny town called Natoma in the hill country of Kansas. It was a place to which she always wanted to return. In fact, she is buried there.
My mother often talked about her naivety when coming to the "big" city of Salina - a city that now has barely over 50,000 people and would have been much smaller when she arrived in the 1950s. She had never seen an African American before arriving in Salina. She was asked by a boy if she was a virgin and answered "no" because she was thinking of the Virgin Mary. When another girl explained to her just what a virgin is, she found the boy and corrected her mistake. She left junior high in seventh grade because she was accustomed to the one-room schoolhouse she attended in Natoma and could not get used the structure of classes in the two-story edifice.
She craved that naivety for her own daughters. I probably will never forget the time when I was probably sixteen or seventeen years old, she asked me if I knew the difference between a boy and a girl. When I admitted I did - and I do mean admit, because I knew the answer she wanted and feared an angry outburst at my answer - she became frustrated and told me my sister did not know at that age. (It was common for her to compare me to my sister). Now, I'm sure my sister did, at that age, know the difference between males and females. She was probably just afraid to admit that she knew. Giving my mother the wrong answer to her questions was never a pleasant experience.
I remember her telling me when I started my period that my body was eliminating poisons. That was her definition. I was so embarrassed and asked her not to tell anyone that I had. I was heartbroken when I overheard her telling my brother and his wife that I had started my period. That broke a trust with me.
My mother's father was an alcoholic. Alcoholism was really a family problem for her family. She recalled, as a child, being sent to the town beer joint to bring him home. Abuses were also part of her family. I am unsure if her parents were ever abusive (she claimed they were not, but she also never saw her verbal abuse as abuse. She did often talk about the razor strap that was used on the back of the legs of her and her siblings if they misbehaved), but I do know abuse followed the children in her family. For her own children, the problem was her verbal and emotional abuse and narcissism in the sense that she refused to give up her control of them. She controlled her children, especially her daughters, so that she did not have to feel uncomfortable or to worry or to feel upset. This control lasted until the day she died. I turned twenty-five two months after she died.
My mother's childhood family had a bootlegger that lived down the street from them. She often told the story of how people would confuse houses and come to my mother's, small family house to buy moonshine. This prompted she and her nine brothers and sisters to post a sign that said, "The bootlegger lives over there." She came from extreme poverty. She talked about one night having potatoes and peas for supper. The next night they would have peas and potatoes. That was all they had. My mother never cared for peas in her adult life.
J.D. Vance discusses in his book the extreme, hillbilly devotion to family. That was prevalent in our family as well. He discusses a time in which his grandfather (his "adopted father," for all practical purposes) accidentally gave a family member, a child, a black eye. When another family member who had just left the home came over, that child with the black eye was made to hide in in the basement because the one who visited was no longer a part of the home.
I can relate to that story. Our family home was a home of secrets. No one was to know the control that was exhibited over my life. If anyone asked about decisions that my mother made for me, I was to tell them it was my idea. That was just the way it should be done. It was better that way. I guess it was better for me to look bad than for her.
The author writes of the endless arguments that were typical in his hillbilly home - arguments between adults, arguments between adults and children. This also was a part of my childhood, teenage years, and early adult life. It was just the way things were done. Everyone argues, everyone shouts. That was the prevalent mindset.
This mindset affected me well into my adult years. I remember when my husband and I were first married, I would shout at him and then tell him to just yell back at me. I would get so frustrated when he refused to yell back. He told me it was disrespectful, and he would not yell at me.
I could very much relate to the author's experiences of trying to overcome his reactions that stemmed from what he was taught in his childhood. As I read his experiences, I thought back to the one incident that really changed me. I've shared this before, but it's been awhile. My sons, Taliesin and Nathanael, must have been around four and two. We were sitting in the middle of our kitchen floor, doing a floor puzzle of the United States. I remember Garfield, our cat we had at the time, would not quit climbing on my lap. They were getting frustrated with the puzzle, as was I (I do not like puzzles). I was trying to keep them interested when I just became so frustrated I screamed. Everything from my past came back to me - the screaming, the anger. I just started bawling, and I kept saying, "One day, you're going to hate me. I know. It's how I feel." Of course, my sons did not know what I meant. But that experience taught me to be different than my past - to parent differently than I had been parented. I've done my best to do that.
As ironic as it sounds, while my immediate home was a war zone; my mother feared having arguments with my brothers, who had left home and were married with children of their own (children that were closer in age to me than my siblings were). We had to "keep the peace" with them. This resulted in a lot of conflict between her and me. I had different ideas than my siblings. I would not shut up about my feelings and pretend to agree with their viewpoints just to "keep the peace." To this day, I have a lot of emotional pain and rarely see my brothers or their families, even those who still live in the same city in which I live. The closeness of family that my mother pushed is no more.
One part of Hillbilly Elegy that I find particularly fascinating is the influence of Pentecostal theology. My mom was a Pentecostal. She attended a Pentecostal church as a child. She promoted that idea. She always said she was not a good Pentecostal, but she was a Pentecostal. I remember when she was admitted to the hospital before she died, and the person taking her information asked for my mother's religion, my sister told them, "Pentecostal. That is what she would want it to say."
From my experiences in traditional, Pentecostal faith; it is a religion of fear. It was a Pentecostal church that led me to four years of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress as an adult. It was the Pentecostal faith that made me feel I could never be good enough for God or His true people. I have to wonder why the traditional Pentecostal faith is such a part of hillbilly life. It is often a religion of secrets. I remember sermons at the Pentecostal church I attended in which members were admonished to not discuss things that could be perceived as negative with those outside of the church.
Hillbilly Elegy is written from the perspective of a grandson. Vance is the grandson of the hillbillies he eulogizes. He writes of his own mother's journey into drug abuse. This drug abuse caused him to turn to his grandparents - the grandparents that had not accepted their daughter but did accept her son. These were the grandparents that were abusive to their daughter, but raised him in a better way than they raised her. That leads to my greatest question about the book. How different would this book have portrayed a hillbilly elegy had it been written by his mother, their daughter? Grandchildren are always treated differently than children. I remember it from my own childhood and early adult life. I have seen other grandparents who were horribly abusive to their own children raise their grandchildren in a way of which their own children could have only dreamed.
In that sense, it is a sad book to me. Vance discusses how his relationship with his grandparents allowed him to become the person he is today. Sadly, the relationship between his mother and her parents (his grandparents) also led her to be the person she is.
Vance does promote the idea that our mindset can help us change our circumstances. While I think that is true in some cases, I believe he idealizes that mindset a bit too much. Not everyone is him. Not everyone, as he points out, has the emotional support he had from his family. He also seems to idolize the idea of money-based success - an idea that I do not support.
That said, I did enjoy the book, even though upon finishing the book last night I had very strange dreams. In one of my dreams, I had a baby. Each time I went somewhere, I felt I had to hide the baby in the car so no one would see her. I think the memories of hiding, of family secrets, of family pain were brought to the surface again. I do agree with what Vance hints at in the book - the secrets and the pain are never fully healed. They are always there. We can feel better about them, but they will always come through at different times throughout our lives.
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