A Review of Hillbilly Elegy, A Memoir of a Family and Culture in

Crisis by J D Vance
Pub. William Collins, London, 2016

Hillbilly Elegy has received a number of very positive reviews, The Economist said that You
will not read a more important book about America this year, The New York Times said
that it is, Essential Reading, The Times (London) called it, Clear-eyed and nuanced, a
powerful antidote to the clamour of news. It is a unique account of growing up in the white
working class, with roots in the Appalachians. In the United States a number of
commentators have seized on this book as a partial explanation for the appeal of Donald
Trump, something that was discussed during an interview that the author gave to Slate on
the 25th August 2016. Vance said, What I think is driving the Trump phenomenon is this
social and cultural anxiety that I write about in the book. He added, If you ask people, the
people I know for example who are supporting Trump, what the biggest problem in their
community is, its something very, very real and its something noneconomic, its something
nonracial: Its that every single time that they open up their local newspaper, they see kids
dying of heroin overdoses. Vance is not a Trump supporter, in fact he said in his interview
that Trump is, leading the white working class to a very dark place.

What is obvious is that white Americans without a college degree are in crisis. Case and
Deaton (2017) found that there were increasing death rates for non-Hispanic white
American men and women in all age groups from 2529 to 6064, who do not have a
college degree, whereas death rates have continued to fall for college graduates. The causes
of death include, drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic-related liver mortality, death rates
from heart disease have also stopped falling for this group. However, mortality rates among
blacks and Hispanics continued to fall, and by 2015 the mortality rate of non-Hispanic white
Americans aged 5054 with only a high-school diploma was 30% higher than that for Blacks
in the same age group. Vance says that the largest problems are in the Appalachian states,
particularly West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of Alabama, Georgia and
Mississippi, and the Carolinas. David Hackett Fischer, in Albions Seed (1989) describes the
migration of the Scots-Irish in the 18th century from the north of Ireland, the English-
Scottish borders, and the Scottish Highlands, to America, driven by poverty, and fears of
famine. According to Hackett Fischer the culture of these areas was one of endemic
violence. Landing at Philadelphia and New Castle, Delaware they were encouraged to move
westward into the Appalachian Mountains, where they established themselves and
replicated their culture across this region. These are the hillbillies, independent-minded,
aggressive and hostile to strangers. It was from these people that Vance and his family
descended and the modern culture and attitudes of white working people in the
Appalachian states still reflects their Scottish-Irish inheritance.

Vance says that, it is in Great Appalachia where the fortunes of working-class whites seems
dimmest. From low social mobility to divorce and drug addition, my home is a hub of
misery. He describes in vivid terms the frequent domestic violence, displayed by family and
neighbours. He said of his grandmother, Mamaw, she was a non-violent drunk. And she
channelled her frustrations into the most productive activity imaginable: covert war..
When he [her husband] came home from work and demanded fresh dinner, she'd carefully
prepare a plate of fresh garbage. If he was in a fighting mood, she'd fight back. In short, she
devoted herself to making his drunken life a living hell. He describes one incident where
Mamaw told her husband, that if he ever came home drunk again, she'd kill him. When he
did come home drunk again and fell asleep on the couch she, calmly retrieved a gasoline
canister from the garage, poured it all over husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his
chest. He survived with only mild burns.

The society Vance describes was violent, socially disruptive, dysfunctional, and with a strong
family orientation. He says that it is not sufficient to blame outside agencies for the decline
of the white working class, although the lack of well-paid jobs, and the sense of despair,
played an important part in creating the social crisis, but we can see in contemporary
Appalachia. He says that social psychologists have shown the group belief is a powerful
motivator affecting performance, that when groups believe it's in their interest to work hard
and achieve things, members of that group at perform other similarly situated individuals.
He adds that in the same way, when people fail the group mindset allows them to look
outwards, and to blame others. He refers to a man in Middletown who quit his job because
he was sick of waking up early, who then blamed the decisions of the government, but as
Vance said, his status in life is directly attributable to the choices he's made, and his life will
improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live
in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. He says there is
tendency in the American white working class to blame problems on society or the
government. Those who fail for victim to premature parenthood, drugs, and incarceration.
As he says, what separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that
they had for their own lives.

I think that to focus our attention only on the rise of Trump, which is likely to be a short-
term phenomenon, is to miss the larger picture, what Vance describes is the deterioration
of an old and well-established culture, with its own values, which was well adapted to life in
the Appalachian Mountains, but which is ill suited to deal with the problems of the 21st-
century. The hollowing out of industrial jobs in much of the United States, the increasing
inequality and the need for a new type of social dialogue, to give meaning to the lives of
ordinary Americans.

It is important, to avoid being wholly negative about the experience of the American white
working class, particularly when you consider the size of the drug problem that is now
affecting them. Margaret Talbot, writing in The New Yorker, described how this epidemic
has affected West Virginia, which is the highest death rate from drug overdose in the United
States. As she says, at this stage of the American opioid epidemic, many addicts are
collapsing in public in gas stations, in restaurant bathrooms, in the aisles of big-box
stores.

If Vance is correct, this society is suffering from a disintegration of its values and lacks a
positive belief system, that can carry it forward. The symptoms are everywhere, the
increasing death rate amongst middle-aged white working class Americans, but this is not to
absolve the actions of corporations, government and other institutions, which have failed to
care for their citizens. There is a need to offer hope, revival of positive values, and division
of what the future could be, Trumpism is not the answer, but a cry for help. As Adam Shatz
wrote, Betrayed by the system, viewed with contempt by elites in New York and
Washington who considered them incapable of adapting to the new economy, the white
wretched of the earth attached themselves to Trump as if he were Moses leading them out
of Egypt. (LRB 10 Nov. 2016)

There is today, throughout the United States, a sense of anger, and alienation, amongst
many ordinary people, Vance's book is a useful guide to the stresses experienced by one
group of Americans, it is well written, accessible, and I strongly recommend. Finally, the
authors own life shows that it is possible to escape from a negative and self-destructive
culture, and he takes care to highlight the good elements, within Hillbilly society, the careful
family, and the struggle that ordinary people face in order to avoid what at times appears to
overwhelming threats.

Andrew Palmer, 2017 (please do not reproduce without permission)