“Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance

If I said that my descendents were hillbillies, my maternal grandmother Vivian would leap out of her Kentucky grave, slap me in the head with her long purple finger names and say, “Don’t be telling stories like that, Lorraine! Our people were not hillbillies!” However, the truth is that my grandmother was married at 17, had a baby by 18 and made sure her grandchildren and great grandchildren called her “Mamaw” to her husband’s “Papaw.” “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance is the story of a boy who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, only 45 minutes from my grandmother’s home in Cincinnati. In Vance’s town, most kids didn’t graduate high school, let alone go to college. His own mother popped pills, then used heroin and was married five times to a disastrous parade of men. When his mom proved too unstable to take care of him, Vance was raised by his grandparents and, against all odds, ended up joining the Marines and then graduated from Ohio State University and later Yale Law School. While reading this book you will be stunned that Vance did not end up using drugs himself, or fall into the depths of frustration or depression.  What is interesting about Vance is that he is not just analyzing the plight of hillbilly culture, but telling his story from inside the conundrum.  How did Vance chart a course for himself that turned out to be so different from the peers he went to elementary school with? Two things: He had a grandmother who loved him and supported him, and he went into the Marines who taught him how to live like an adult, from physical fitness to personal finances.  His grandmother raised him, and then the Marines taught him how to survive on his own. A lot can be said about the broken infrastructure of hillbilly towns across America, but Vance’s story is what happens when someone says to a poor little boy with no future in sight, “You matter. You are important.” It seems like those are two small sentences, but they clearly had a lasting impression on this author’s life. To purchase this book on Amazon click here.