In what ways does Hillbilly Elegy encourage sympathy for conditions in which the hillbilly community finds itself, while simultaneously refusing to accept excuses for it?
Much of Hillbilly Elegy is focused on the ways in which a child’s upbringing affects their life chances. Vance writes about his mother, who was raised by an alcoholic father and later suffered her own addiction issues. He speaks about his grandmother, who was raised in a violent household and exhibited a temper for the rest of her life. More personally, he details each of his mother’s four marriages and how they hindered his own abilities to have relationships in his adult life. At the end of the book, he is nearly involved in a road rage incident, and he connects that back to the lessons he learned as a child. At the same time, he suggests that his troubled upbringing also had positive outcomes, such as the self-reliance and determination it forged within him. In this sense, Vance firmly believes in the powerful effects of childhood nurturing.
