Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance 

The book is Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. It was originally published in 2016 by HarperCollins. I read the first Harper Paperback 2018 edition. I read it in July of 2024.  

The title is Vance’s life story. He tells of his childhood growing up in Ohio and Kentucky.  

“It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America. Our elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.” (p144-145) 

I read this because Vance is currently Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate in the 2024 election. I’ve known about this book since it came out. I’ve been wanting to read it since I saw the movie on Netflix. But know that he might be the Vice President I feel like I need to read it.  

Vance is trying to explain the forgotten disadvantaged drug-filled, crime-filled community of poor white people in Appalachia. He grew up in a poor home with a drug-addicted single mother. He had a rough life. He’s pointing out that usually people are in a bad situation in their life because of the decisions they’ve made.  

Vance’s Horatio Alger story isn’t supposed to be real. The rags-to-riches stories are supposed to be myths. People in poor disadvantages communities are supposed to be incapable of doing anything to change their plight by themselves. The “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” narrative is supposed to be impossible.  

Liberals don’t like stories like this because it destroys their narrative that poor people are helpless without taking money from rich people. 

It is true that most people are in the bad situations they’re in because of decisions they’ve made. Yes some people are born behind the eightball and some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. But Vance’s story is proof that in America we have torn down the barriers to class mobility.  

It’s not just about who has the money. It’s a mindset shift that needs to take place. That’s my main takeaway from this book.  

“social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst.” (p207) 

To be different you have to think and act differently. Your values have to change. From a Christian worldview, if we want to grow in spiritual maturity we will need to change our desires. We must want what God wants. It’s the opposite of “be true to yourself.” Or maybe, yes be true to yourself but that truth is that you have to change.  

This book made me think of my childhood. We were in a bad neighborhood when my parents got divorced. Even at seven years old I was on my way to becoming a statistic but my working single mom pulled us out of public school to homeschool us. That was a good decision. But the world will say it’s an impossible decision. My mom was single but she wasn’t alone. She relied on God and what God provided her, which was family and a very good church community. They helped us out so much.  

Vance is a good writer. He keeps the reader engaged and interested throughout the story. It’s real and emotional and believable.  

Fact is certainly stranger than fiction. I thought this passage was funny in light of recent political current events. 

“When Bob became my legal father, Mom changed my name from James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel. Until then, I’d borne my father’s first name as my middle name, and Mom used the adoption to erase any memory of his existence….Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn’t Donald.” (p63) 

God has a sense of humor.  

I’d recommend this book to voters. It’s a good way to learn about the real J.D. Vance. It’s an interesting and inspiring story.  

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Notable Quotables 

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Our religion has changed built around churches heavy on emotional rhetoric but light on the kind of social support necessary to enable poor kids to do well. (p4) 

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Mamaw’s first foray into adulthood ended in tragedy. Today I often wonder: Without the baby, would she ever have left Jackson? Would she have run off with Jim Vance to foreign territory? Mamaw’s entire life-and the trajectory of our family-may have changed for a baby who lived only six days. (p27) 

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When Bob became my legal father, Mom changed my name from James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel. Until then, I’d borne my father’s first name as my middle name, and Mom used the adoption to erase any memory of his existence. 

Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn’t Donald. (p63) 

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The theology she taught was unsophisticated, but it provided a message I needed to hear. To coast through life was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard. I had to take care of my family because Christian duty demanded it. I needed to forgive, not just for my mother’s sake but for my own. I should never despair, for God had a plan. 

Your death is your own fault.” God helps those who help themselves. This was the wisdom of the Book of Mamaw. (p86-87) 

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Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about Mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about. 

In my new church, on the other hand, I heard more about the gay lobby and the war on Christmas than about any particular character trait that a Christian should aspire to have. 

Morality was defined by not participating in this or that particular social malady: the gay agenda, evolutionary theory, Clintonian liberalism, or extramarital sex. Dad’s church required so little of me. It was easy to be a Christian. The only affirmative teachings I remember drawing from church were that I shouldn’t cheat on my wife and that I shouldn’t be afraid to preach the gospel to others. (p98) 

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I think we enjoyed the feeling that we burdened no one except perhaps each other. Lindsay and I had grown so good at managing crises, so emotionally stoic even as the very planet seemed to lose its cool, that taking care of ourselves seemed easy. (p114) 

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That debate is important, of course-for a long time, much of my failing school district qualified for vouchers—but it was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, “They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.” (p126-127) 

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It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America. Our elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith. (p144-145) 

“””” 

I knew even as a child that there were two separate sets of mores and social pressures. My grandparents embodied one type: old-fashioned, quietly faithful, self-reliant, hardworking. My mother and, increasingly, the entire neighborhood embodied another: consumerist, isolated, angry, distrustful. (p148) 

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Paying for her health insurance made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was the protector. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I’d never imagined…drove the whole way, I paid for gas, and I bought everyone dinner (admittedly at Wendy’s). I felt like such a man, a real grown-up. To laugh and joke with the people I loved most as they scarfed down the meal that I’d provided gave me a feeling of joy and accomplishment that words can’t possibly describe. (p167) 

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Mamaw always had two gods: Jesus Christ and the United States of America. I was no different, and neither was anyone else I knew. (p189) 

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I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. (p193) 

“””” 

social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst. (p207)