Hillbilly Elegy: Great Memoir, Poor Solutions

Before booking passage for West Virginia earlier this year (as if I was sailing to a different world, please excuse my poor excuse of a literary license), I was loaned a copy of J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which is prominently touted as being about the ails of Appalachia. 

However, I have a very complicated relationship with the book. Well, to be honest, I have a very complicated relationship with the book's conclusion, because it fails to answer the omnipresent question that lingers over Vance's entire story: how do we fix Appalachia?

Written essentially as a memoir that follows Vance's life, which concludes with him graduating from Yale University after beginning his journey in a dilapidated Ohio industry town, Hillbilly Elegy painstakingly leads the reader through the author's horrible childhood, his attempts to escape the poverty of his home, and his eventual success by first joining the military and later attending college.

It's a classic tale of the downtrodden man fighting his way toward upward mobility, or as we call it in my country, the "American Dream." Vance's rise from ashes to comfort is inspiring and worth the read.

But...

My issue with the tome, however, stems from how it ends with essentially no prescription, plan, suggestion or recommendation on how to address the economic, cultural, medical, and societal ills that have come to define the poorest region in the United States; a region that Vance does a good job of describing in realistic terms, but which he fails in representing to the outside world as a fixable situation. 

Part of the author's biggest critique of Appalachian culture is its lack of work ethic, which flatly reeks of a Yale University level of pretentiousness if I may say so, because you would think Vance himself would be able to recognize that (a.) Appalachia has fallen into a self-defeatist rut after losing its cultural identity and (b.) escape is often the easy way off of a sinking ship. 

I don't blame Vance for escaping his roots, because he probably never would have written his tome otherwise, but his very escape should speak to the endemic problem of Appalachia, which is to remain is to die. For all intents and purposes, Appalachia is the impoverished white man's version of inner city ghettos, only there's shacks instead of tenements and mountains instead of skyscrapers.

Quite frankly, in order for a culture to possess work ethic and grit, it must have a reason to do so. Poor, uninspired Appalachian communities are not going to find a sense of work ethic overnight when the coal mines have been closed for decades, their culture has become alienated from the rest of society, and its number one media commentator is only capable of being in the position he is in because he fled.   

This may just be a personal complaint I possess against the author, however, because I live in one of the poorest counties in New York: Schoharie County, which ironically serves as the northeastern boundary of Appalachia according to the Appalachian Regional Commission, and it too is suffering culturally and economically and the response of most young adults is to leave home as rapidly as possible. 

I didn't do that, though. All of my brothers pushed me from a very early age to leave home, but I stayed because I loved my community, I loved my friends and family, and I believed that the only way to be part of the solution was to lead by example and to get my hands dirty in building a better place for everyone to call home. 

Whatever the case may be, Appalachia deserves more than Vance's poor (albeit well intended) excuse for a solution to its problems. That poor excuse, in my opinion, is what made Hillbilly Elegy a book that I wanted to love, but I couldn't help but resent. 

"Yes, I'm From New York"

With more than three days worth of extensive driving in the two Virginia's this week, I can safely say that I have a new favorite game to play while wistfully driving through the two state's mountainous backwoods highways: "Yes, I'm From New York."

It doesn't really matter where I have been: tourist traps, back roads, fast food joints, or even interstate highways, because once you reach the western expanses of Maryland (which make you question how they are even in the same state as Baltimore, but I digress), there is apparently nothing more interesting than New York license plates. 

This intrigue is expressed predominantly by staring, especially on the highway. Passersby are not very subtle when they pass your New York car and then proceed to stare intently into your driver's window to catch a glimpse of the illusive Yankee.

Spotted: an illusive Yankee, eating at a burger 
joint with the greatest bacon & cheese fries.

Another favorite of mine is when you stop at a gas station, tourist attraction, or somewhere along those lines, and the natives stop what they are doing to see who (or what) emerges from the vehicle. 

However, I think that I have mostly disappointed them, because while I do wear a cheap watch that looks nice, I usually also wear flannels and I am bearded; not exactly the slick New York City denizen they were probably imagining when they saw my plates. 

My favorite "Yes, I'm From New York" moment happened in West Virginia's Greenbrier Valley when I pulled into a local gas station. Now, just to set the scene: I drive a little Chevy Aveo, which is probably a slightly more masculine version of what would happen if you mixed an authentic Yugo with a classic Volkswagen.

Stock photo: this is my car. Just imagine New York
license plates and my jolly face behind the wheel.

As I pull into the station, I notice this pretty, tall brunette lady leaving a souped up low riding car's passenger side while her boyfriend remains in the driver's seat. They both notice my car, my plates, and then wait for me to exit my vehicle, which I did unassumingly.

When I left my Aveo, the lady realized I was dressed fairly similar to how most people in her neck of the woods are on a regular basis and she politely smiled at me, while her boyfriend looked at me in abject disgust that I was driving such a small, seemingly non-masculine car.

I found it all to be rather amusing, but apparently the boyfriend did not, because as he and his lady pulled away from the station, he was muttering something and pointing at my car as if I had intentionally run over his favorite Bloodhound while driving the damned thing. 

As you might imagine, this all seemed rather silly to me at first, but then I realized that I had very little to say in all actuality, because what right did I have to find amusement with their actions toward me when I had gone on this very trip to begin trying to understand their very culture?

How can I now begrudge their similar, albeit smaller in scale, yet equally inquisitive attempts to understand me when I am devoting multiple trips across Appalachia to gain a better appreciation for what makes their culture tick?

Side note: it's hard not to love a culture that has engineering marvels
 like this just hanging around on a random highway.

Honestly, I cannot without being a hypocrite, which is why I play my "Yes, I'm From New York" game while remembering that curiosity begets knowledge which begets understanding, and Lord knows the world must understand Appalachia better than it does currently.

Post Script: I did notice that my car attracted other Northern cars like a magnet during my trip, because if I parked my Aveo long enough somewhere that my parking area would usually be covered with nothing but New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and other similar state license plates by the time I returned.