Hillbilly Elegy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from a poor white trash family in the Midwest. I was looking forward to reading this book this month. Sorry to hear it is just so-so.

What boggles my mind (the only person in my family who "got out" with scholarships and went to college, and the only one not on some sort of government aid... I kid you not) is how no one in my extended family wants to improve their lot in life. I would love some discussion and insights on this. My husband thinks I was switched in the hospital (his explanation of how I emerged)! Lol.

To me, this is a core part of the book. Vance describes exactly that. And though he tries to understand and explain it, I'm not sure how well he succeeded. Frankly, I'm not sure he can yet. He's young and maybe does not have enough perspective.

But he absolutely calls out the exact mindset you describe -- and his confusion about how he somehow turned out differently (while recognizing how easily he might have gone the other way). My guess is you and he might be in similar places about this part of your identity. He's not necessarily offering massive insights, but he is shining a light on it for those of us who have not walked in your shoes.

It's a core part of the book, but this is essentially the Conservative view of poor people. They don't want to be rich. It's their fault because they don't want to work hard. They could stop being poor, they just don't want to. That's a fact because look -- I wanted to, I climbed out of poverty, I'm now a rich Ivy League lawyer, so it could happen for those people. They just don't want it.

Damn right he isn't offering massive insights. He isn't offering any insights. He's offering indictments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from a poor white trash family in the Midwest. I was looking forward to reading this book this month. Sorry to hear it is just so-so.

What boggles my mind (the only person in my family who "got out" with scholarships and went to college, and the only one not on some sort of government aid... I kid you not) is how no one in my extended family wants to improve their lot in life. I would love some discussion and insights on this. My husband thinks I was switched in the hospital (his explanation of how I emerged)! Lol.

To me, this is a core part of the book. Vance describes exactly that. And though he tries to understand and explain it, I'm not sure how well he succeeded. Frankly, I'm not sure he can yet. He's young and maybe does not have enough perspective.

But he absolutely calls out the exact mindset you describe -- and his confusion about how he somehow turned out differently (while recognizing how easily he might have gone the other way). My guess is you and he might be in similar places about this part of your identity. He's not necessarily offering massive insights, but he is shining a light on it for those of us who have not walked in your shoes.

It's a core part of the book, but this is essentially the Conservative view of poor people. They don't want to be rich. It's their fault because they don't want to work hard. They could stop being poor, they just don't want to. That's a fact because look -- I wanted to, I climbed out of poverty, I'm now a rich Ivy League lawyer, so it could happen for those people. They just don't want it.

Damn right he isn't offering massive insights. He isn't offering any insights. He's offering indictments.

It's not the Conservative view of poor people. It's a one person's memoir of living among poor people.

That's you automatically consider that Conservative shows how out of touch, condescending and clueless limo liberals are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Vance is a con artist. Grandparents with a $100K HHI and a mom who graduated top of her high school class, became a nurse, step dad who made at least $75K as truck driver isn't "working poor." And the town he grew up in in Ohio is STILL a pretty pleasant place. I think he's a smart nerd from Ohio that stole all the content for this book from white trash he saw in Kentucky.

Joined the military to pay for college? No. I think he's a clever nerd that wanted bonafides so he could get into an elite law school, write a book, run for office. The fact that Tiger Mom herself was his mentor at Yale tells you everything.

I don't think you read the book. His mom was addicted his entire childhood and did not mother him. His entire family was deeply dysfunctional and traumatized. You can decide he was lying, I suppose, but if you accept that it is a faithful attempt and autobiography you have to accept that his family was very broken.

I am reading Dream Land now, about the rise of opiate addiction in the US and the role of a small town drug-producing town in Mexico and the pain clinic industry - its a good journalistic companion piece to Hillbilly Elegy, I think.

I read the book and yes, I think he obviously embellished/exaggerated a lot of it.

Not the PP, but I grew up about 20 miles from Middletown, OH (though from an entirely different background) and, for me anyway, the whole thing went into the category of "Wow, you can't make this sh*t up."

Curious what you think was untrue.

He wasn't poor, his town was solid middle class, he had college-educated family, his mom was super smart, she became nurse. That's a long ways from the trailer park.

Addiction, PP. Addiction. It doesn't matter if your town is solidly middle class and you don't live in a trailer park. If your mom is addicted to opiates and can't protect and love you, your whole life is going to be f'ed up. And in that town (and in a whole lot of small town America) addiction is pretty prevalent. If you think he is lying about his mom being an addict and his grandparents being pretty abusive and no one really holding jobs...okay. But you seem to simply distrust that his story could be true because you don't think that area is poor enough.

Except JD Vance didn't write a memoir about being a child of addiction. He wrote one about being a hillbilly when his immediate family no longer was.

Read the book.

+1

The book was very much a memoir about addiction. It was also about the community and culture in which that particular addiction unfolded.

For me, it was a memoir first, and political commentary a distant second.

To the extent he was making a political "point," I took it to be about the passive/victim mindset that is consuming his community of origin.

I read the book as one person's attempt to make sense of his complicated life. In a way, like Obama's book "Dreams of My Father."

I think people project quite a bit of their own politics or agenda on this book, of course because of the timing with Trump. But at it's core, it's a memoir.

Others disagree, but I definitely learned a lot. I grew up on the east coast. Three generations from dirt-poor immigrants, two generations from tolerable poverty. But my people started and stayed in NYC for those generations. They absorbed a different mindset and culture. It was all active. You control your future. Anything you want can be yours (or your children's) with enough risk and hard work, etc. AND they had exposure and access to all the opportunities NYC had to offer. They came with nothing, but they saw what was possible.

My sense is Vance's people are a product of their place as much as anything else. And I found that thought provoking. What if my great-grandparents had kept moving after Ellis Island and settled where Vance'd people did? Who would they have become? Who would I be?

Is this political? I guess at the end of the day, yes. Place impacts opportunity and culture, which in turn impact values and behavior, which in turn impact voting preferences, political choices and the direction of this country. But I felt like the book got there from the bottom up. Individual - Family - Community - Country. Not top down.

I couldn't agree more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Vance is a con artist. Grandparents with a $100K HHI and a mom who graduated top of her high school class, became a nurse, step dad who made at least $75K as truck driver isn't "working poor." And the town he grew up in in Ohio is STILL a pretty pleasant place. I think he's a smart nerd from Ohio that stole all the content for this book from white trash he saw in Kentucky.

Joined the military to pay for college? No. I think he's a clever nerd that wanted bonafides so he could get into an elite law school, write a book, run for office. The fact that Tiger Mom herself was his mentor at Yale tells you everything.

I don't think you read the book. His mom was addicted his entire childhood and did not mother him. His entire family was deeply dysfunctional and traumatized. You can decide he was lying, I suppose, but if you accept that it is a faithful attempt and autobiography you have to accept that his family was very broken.

I am reading Dream Land now, about the rise of opiate addiction in the US and the role of a small town drug-producing town in Mexico and the pain clinic industry - its a good journalistic companion piece to Hillbilly Elegy, I think.

I read the book and yes, I think he obviously embellished/exaggerated a lot of it.

Not the PP, but I grew up about 20 miles from Middletown, OH (though from an entirely different background) and, for me anyway, the whole thing went into the category of "Wow, you can't make this sh*t up."

Curious what you think was untrue.

He wasn't poor, his town was solid middle class, he had college-educated family, his mom was super smart, she became nurse. That's a long ways from the trailer park.

Addiction, PP. Addiction. It doesn't matter if your town is solidly middle class and you don't live in a trailer park. If your mom is addicted to opiates and can't protect and love you, your whole life is going to be f'ed up. And in that town (and in a whole lot of small town America) addiction is pretty prevalent. If you think he is lying about his mom being an addict and his grandparents being pretty abusive and no one really holding jobs...okay. But you seem to simply distrust that his story could be true because you don't think that area is poor enough.

Except JD Vance didn't write a memoir about being a child of addiction. He wrote one about being a hillbilly when his immediate family no longer was.

Read the book.

I did. It's not good. My point is id he wanted to talk about how his addict mom made his life suck he should have written a book about being the child of addiction. He wrapped that up into some hillbillyness his immediate family DID NOT possess any longer. His parents made $100k in the early 90s and he lived in suburban Ohio. Sure he had issues from his mom's addiction but his whole schtick is it was because they were hillbillies which is just disingenuous at best to claim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Vance is a con artist. Grandparents with a $100K HHI and a mom who graduated top of her high school class, became a nurse, step dad who made at least $75K as truck driver isn't "working poor." And the town he grew up in in Ohio is STILL a pretty pleasant place. I think he's a smart nerd from Ohio that stole all the content for this book from white trash he saw in Kentucky.

Joined the military to pay for college? No. I think he's a clever nerd that wanted bonafides so he could get into an elite law school, write a book, run for office. The fact that Tiger Mom herself was his mentor at Yale tells you everything.

I don't think you read the book. His mom was addicted his entire childhood and did not mother him. His entire family was deeply dysfunctional and traumatized. You can decide he was lying, I suppose, but if you accept that it is a faithful attempt and autobiography you have to accept that his family was very broken.

I am reading Dream Land now, about the rise of opiate addiction in the US and the role of a small town drug-producing town in Mexico and the pain clinic industry - its a good journalistic companion piece to Hillbilly Elegy, I think.

I read the book and yes, I think he obviously embellished/exaggerated a lot of it.

Not the PP, but I grew up about 20 miles from Middletown, OH (though from an entirely different background) and, for me anyway, the whole thing went into the category of "Wow, you can't make this sh*t up."

Curious what you think was untrue.

He wasn't poor, his town was solid middle class, he had college-educated family, his mom was super smart, she became nurse. That's a long ways from the trailer park.

Addiction, PP. Addiction. It doesn't matter if your town is solidly middle class and you don't live in a trailer park. If your mom is addicted to opiates and can't protect and love you, your whole life is going to be f'ed up. And in that town (and in a whole lot of small town America) addiction is pretty prevalent. If you think he is lying about his mom being an addict and his grandparents being pretty abusive and no one really holding jobs...okay. But you seem to simply distrust that his story could be true because you don't think that area is poor enough.

Except JD Vance didn't write a memoir about being a child of addiction. He wrote one about being a hillbilly when his immediate family no longer was.

Read the book.

I did. It's not good. My point is id he wanted to talk about how his addict mom made his life suck he should have written a book about being the child of addiction. He wrapped that up into some hillbillyness his immediate family DID NOT possess any longer. His parents made $100k in the early 90s and he lived in suburban Ohio. Sure he had issues from his mom's addiction but his whole schtick is it was because they were hillbillies which is just disingenuous at best to claim.

Agreed. I grew up in Ohio and he was pretty close to the typical kid. I think he has really gotten one over on a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from a poor white trash family in the Midwest. I was looking forward to reading this book this month. Sorry to hear it is just so-so.

What boggles my mind (the only person in my family who "got out" with scholarships and went to college, and the only one not on some sort of government aid... I kid you not) is how no one in my extended family wants to improve their lot in life. I would love some discussion and insights on this. My husband thinks I was switched in the hospital (his explanation of how I emerged)! Lol.

To me, this is a core part of the book. Vance describes exactly that. And though he tries to understand and explain it, I'm not sure how well he succeeded. Frankly, I'm not sure he can yet. He's young and maybe does not have enough perspective.

But he absolutely calls out the exact mindset you describe -- and his confusion about how he somehow turned out differently (while recognizing how easily he might have gone the other way). My guess is you and he might be in similar places about this part of your identity. He's not necessarily offering massive insights, but he is shining a light on it for those of us who have not walked in your shoes.

It's a core part of the book, but this is essentially the Conservative view of poor people. They don't want to be rich. It's their fault because they don't want to work hard. They could stop being poor, they just don't want to. That's a fact because look -- I wanted to, I climbed out of poverty, I'm now a rich Ivy League lawyer, so it could happen for those people. They just don't want it.

Damn right he isn't offering massive insights. He isn't offering any insights. He's offering indictments.

It's not the Conservative view of poor people. It's a one person's memoir of living among poor people.

That's you automatically consider that Conservative shows how out of touch, condescending and clueless limo liberals are.

Okay, you don't represent all conservatives but apparently I represent all liberals. Magical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

You are a strange one

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

You are a strange one

Strange is good, it's diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

Sorry I disagree

Mom was a nurse and parents made $100k and owned a home in suburban Ohio. He went to Yale. Not hillbilly. But I can see how adopting that part of his family's history has served him well. Kind of like how his last name is not actually Vance but ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

Sorry I disagree

Mom was a nurse and parents made $100k and owned a home in suburban Ohio. He went to Yale. Not hillbilly. But I can see how adopting that part of his family's history has served him well. Kind of like how his last name is not actually Vance but ok.

You obviously have a personal vendetta against him, and I doubt you've read the book.

He lived all his formative years surrounded by hilbillies, living with them year round either in Ohio (with transplants) or back in Kentucky the summers and innumerable events. That's his upbringing and cultural code and first-hand direct experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that he was making the point that the hillbilly culture followed him to Ohio and that having more money didn't solve any familial issues.

+1.

Let's be clear: he is more hillbilly than Obama is African American.

Same standards for all, folks, isn't that we are supposed to be aiming at?

Sorry I disagree

Mom was a nurse and parents made $100k and owned a home in suburban Ohio. He went to Yale. Not hillbilly. But I can see how adopting that part of his family's history has served him well. Kind of like how his last name is not actually Vance but ok.

why do you have such a thing against him? do you know him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from a poor white trash family in the Midwest. I was looking forward to reading this book this month. Sorry to hear it is just so-so.

What boggles my mind (the only person in my family who "got out" with scholarships and went to college, and the only one not on some sort of government aid... I kid you not) is how no one in my extended family wants to improve their lot in life. I would love some discussion and insights on this. My husband thinks I was switched in the hospital (his explanation of how I emerged)! Lol.

To me, this is a core part of the book. Vance describes exactly that. And though he tries to understand and explain it, I'm not sure how well he succeeded. Frankly, I'm not sure he can yet. He's young and maybe does not have enough perspective.

But he absolutely calls out the exact mindset you describe -- and his confusion about how he somehow turned out differently (while recognizing how easily he might have gone the other way). My guess is you and he might be in similar places about this part of your identity. He's not necessarily offering massive insights, but he is shining a light on it for those of us who have not walked in your shoes.

It's a core part of the book, but this is essentially the Conservative view of poor people. They don't want to be rich. It's their fault because they don't want to work hard. They could stop being poor, they just don't want to. That's a fact because look -- I wanted to, I climbed out of poverty, I'm now a rich Ivy League lawyer, so it could happen for those people. They just don't want it.

Damn right he isn't offering massive insights. He isn't offering any insights. He's offering indictments.

I wrote earlier on this thread about how I can't see how he's a conservative but read the American Conservative article and you'll see he has some heterodox opinions, one of which is thinking that the Conservative mantra of pulling up by one's bootstraps is false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Vance is a con artist. Grandparents with a $100K HHI and a mom who graduated top of her high school class, became a nurse, step dad who made at least $75K as truck driver isn't "working poor." And the town he grew up in in Ohio is STILL a pretty pleasant place. I think he's a smart nerd from Ohio that stole all the content for this book from white trash he saw in Kentucky.

Joined the military to pay for college? No. I think he's a clever nerd that wanted bonafides so he could get into an elite law school, write a book, run for office. The fact that Tiger Mom herself was his mentor at Yale tells you everything.

+1