'Ignorant and lazy': Appalachians respond to 'Hillbilly Elegy' with their own book

As a tenth generation Appalachian, Ivy Brashear sees J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” as a “really one-sided and simple view of the region.”

In an effort to help broaden people’s view of Appalachia, she decided to share her own narrative as part of a collection of writings in the 2019 book, “Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy.”

“(Hillbilly Elegy) isn’t the only story that you should look at,” Brashear said. “You should broaden your view and see what other stories exist in (Appalachia).”

Appalachian Reckoning is divided into two parts that feature many diverse contributors — the first half is responses commenting on Hillbilly Elegy and the second part is a compilation of narratives and images from people who tell their own personal stories about Appalachia.

“This is a book born out of frustration,” the introduction reads. “This is a book born out of hope. It attempts to speak for no one and to give voice to many. … It is meant to open a conversation about why that book struck such a deep nerve with many in the region, but it is not meant to demonize J. D. Vance.”

Appalachian Reckoning was edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll, and published by West Virginia University Press.

“Our interest was in making clear that Appalachia was a huge, diverse place with many different stories and many different voices,” Harkins said.

Appalachia is a 13 state region that extends from New York all the way down to Mississippi. 32 Ohio counties are in the Appalachian region.

Hillbilly Elegy

“Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” chronicles the challenges Vance faced growing up in Middletown, Ohio — which is not part of Appalachia. Vance’s mom and her family were from Eastern Kentucky, which is part of Appalachia.

Hillbilly Elegy has been experiencing a recent resurgence since Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump picked Ohio Senator Vance as his running mate, soaring to the top of the best-sellers on Amazon. The book was previously a New York Times bestseller and was made into a Ron Howard movie.

But Vance’s memoir has faced criticism for generalizing Appalachia and the working class.

“It has been a continuation of the shaping of the conception of the region for the rest of the world, the rest of the country, I think, in mostly negative ways in ways that reinforce notions of the people as violent and ignorant and lazy and responsible for their own problems in ways that really does not explain the socio-economic history of the place and how it became and how it is,” Harkins said.

Hillbilly Elegy has influenced how people from outside the region view Appalachia, he said.

“It has framed the region through this one prism and hidden a lot of the more complex, diverse area parts of the story,” Harkins said. “It reinforces the idea that it is a monocultural space and hides a lot of the range of voices and experiences.”

Brashear said it essentially reduces Appalachia down to a caricature.

“When you paint with a broad brush over an entire very complex, very diverse place, you lose a lot of the nuance of what it means to be a part of that place, be from that place, to advocate for that place, to fight for that place, and to really feel rooted in that place,”she said. “When you lose that nuance and lose that humanity, it really makes it hard for other people to relate, and it makes it hard for other people to see that this place is worth investment too.”

Vance’s memoir has reinforced stereotypes about Appalachia, said Tiffany Arnold, Ohio University’s Appalachian Studies Certificate Programs Coordinator.

“Hillbilly Elegy has hurt the region, Vance has hurt the region because people choose to believe rhetoric that reinforces what they already believe about us because if they believe that we are what they think, they can continue to use us as their scapegoats for anything they think is wrong with this country and not take responsibility for the institutional and systemic poverty that has existed here for generations, and Vance has certainly reinforced stereotypes that already existed,” Arnold wrote in an email to the Capital Journal.

Appalachian Reckoning

Brashear wrote about her Kentucky family for her chapter in Reckoning titled, ‘Keep Your “Elegy”: The Appalachia I Know Is Very Much Alive.’

“I come from a culture and a family of dignity and grace and laughter and joy — none of which exists in J.D. Vance’s fictitious Appalachia,” she wrote in her chapter. “Hillbilly Elegy actively and intentionally ignores and excludes the real-life, lived experiences of all but a minority of Appalachian people.

Brashear writes how she does not discount the struggles Vance experienced in his childhood.

“However, I do take great issue with the ways in which his narrative of the region erases and erodes any Appalachian experience outside his own non-Appalachian experience by reinforcing repeatedly that Appalachian “hillbilly” culture is somehow deficient and morally decrepit, and that it is something to be overcome and escaped from without looking back,” she writes.

Bob Hutton, an associate professor of Appalachian Studies at Glenville State University in West Virginia, wrote his response to Elegy in a Reckoning chapter titled ‘Hillbilly Elitism.‘

“Vance shares the view that poor whites are bound by their regressive culture,” Hutton wrote in his essay. “Vance’s view of poverty has profound racial and geographic limits that curtail his ability to understand it. … His book ultimately illustrates the oxymoron capitalism and its defenders require: any hard-working individual can rise to the top, but, at any given time, far more individuals must remain on the bottom.”

Harkins said the response to Appalachian Reckoning over the years has been encouraging.

“So many people … wanted to see more voices presented, and and we also tried very hard with that book to have as much of a range of voices and texts and approaches as possible,” he said.

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