Like most of us, I can easily dredge up memories of doing book reports in school. Most especially of the dreaded Oral Book Report. That particular paralysis of standing in front of a classroom of your peers, cold sweat, dry mouth, light-headed from anxiety. I could never do a good read justice.
There must be a difference between a book report and a book review. Perhaps the book report is what students have to do, and book reviews are what grown-ups get to do. Hmmm. Let's see:
According to yourdictionary.com:
A book report is "an objective retelling of the story". It's purpose is to summarize and inform.
A book review is a subjective analysis of the story. It's purpose is to evaluate the book and offer an opinion about it.
That's it! In my reticent book reporting days, I wouldn't have been able to dredge up an opinion about a book and say it out loud under any circumstances. Yeah, those days are long past. I can dredge up an opinion about anything now, and say it out loud whether or not anyone is even listening! Here's to being a grown-up!
I've decided to try a combination. A short summary, so you will have some idea of what the book is about. Then my opinion and analysis.
A little back story about how I choose books to read. HAHAHAHAHAH! There IS no criteria! It could be a book review from Time or People magazine. It could be a personal reference. It could be a topic I'm exploring or an author I've tried and grown to like. But if I'm scanning a shelf of books to find something I might like-e.g. at the library, or a thrift store- there actually can be a very minimal test or two. 1) Do I like the book cover? Woe to books without a cover. If it's an author I don't know, my eye flies right over it. 2) Do I like the book title? I'll choose a book by title alone, without reading any of the cover information even if it's available. I can never be described as discriminating.
On to it. The book I'm choosing to review is titled "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," by J.D. Vance. I chose it both because some time ago I (briefly) read reviews about it and most overwhelmingly, I could not possibly resist the title. By the time I got around to reading it, I had no recollection of what it was about and didn't care. The title was still enough.
Published in 2016, Hillbilly Elegy made the top of the New York Times best seller list in both 2016 and 2017, achieving the greatest prestige for its author. It swept assigned reading lists and book club choices. It was the rage. Naturally, lots of summaries, opinions and analyses were floated. Here's mine, starting with the Book Report.
Let's look at that title:
Hillbilly: (derogatory, informal) An unsophisticated country person, as associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians. (oxforddictionaries.com)
Elegy: (in modern literature) a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. (oxforddictionaries.com)
As indicated, Hillbilly Elegy is first and foremost a memoir. The author describes his childhood and young adult life as he remembers it. It is necessarily limited by his perceptions. While he did research and interviews for the book, as with all memoirs, his experience stands alone.
Author J.D. Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up there and with extended family in Jackson, Kentucky. His grandparents were part of a post-WWII migration of workers from the south, and particularly the Appalachian areas, to the industrializing northern US. The need for workers was acute, and residents of Appalachia were recruited as individuals, families, and even whole towns. As a result, their "hillbilly" culture often stayed intact. Vance's experience included the worst of that culture: rotating father figures, domestic violence, drug abuse, honor and loyalty ethics requiring a violent response that precluded larger cultural norms. As he reached his teenage years, the US steel industry took the hit from which it has never recovered as part of the 2008 Great Recession. Armco Steel, the major employer of Middletown, closed. Middletown followed the normal course of imploding towns: rampant unemployment, declining expectations, hopelessness, and a perception of victimization.
Against this background, Vance has a paradoxical tale to tell. Despite an upbringing that seemed to have an inevitable result, he not only survived, but through a series of unforeseeable events, many coincidental, he was able to graduate from high school, join the Marine Corps, attend and graduate from Ohio State University on the GI bill. He decided to apply for law school, and after some informal research applied to both Yale and Harvard, based on their reputations. He was accepted to Yale without realizing he was the recipient of Yale's need-based aid; for him, a nearly full scholarship. As a student of Yale, he was automatically afforded the many opportunities and contacts that are part and parcel of an Ivy League education and a Yale Law School education in particular. He graduated and has a successful career in California. In his own words, Vance says, "...I didn't write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grow up like me."
Book Review:
My opinion: Loved it! My analysis: I love a redemption story, and that's what this book is. Vance's success is not his personal redemption, but the redemption of his upbringing. Vance himself was no villain turned hero. He was a kid caught in a situation. He could have gone either way at any time, and says so. Inadvertently, he is the recipient of a series of those coincidences that make or break a life, and of which we're not often aware at the time. Here's the redemption arc:
His mother was an addict, provided the rotating father figures and a wildly unpredictable daily life to her children, Vance and his sister Lindsay. Her parents, the first generation out of Appalachia and hillbilly to the core, were the first make-or-break. Their own marriage failed due to domestic violence on both their parts. However, they stayed separately in the neighborhood, and as they grew older, saw and responded to the need in Vance and his sister for safety, stability and consistency. They offered themselves in quasi-parental roles, including the insistence of the value of getting an education. Though Vance was an indifferent student, he managed to graduate from high school.
At a loss of what to do afterwards, he sent for application material for Ohio State University. Neither he nor his grandmother had an inkling of how to fill out the application paperwork, nor did they know who to ask. Another make-or-break occurred when he had a conversation with a female cousin who was a Marine Corp veteran. She told him to talk to a recruiter, and her confidence gave him confidence. He enlisted and was immersed in a wholly different culture of discipline, highest expectations, team vs individual. He was taught and learned the skills he needed not only survive but succeed during deployment. Many (though not all!) of the skills and principles he learned transferred to his civilian life.
His Marine Corp experience gave him the maturity and confidence to apply to Ohio State University where through a blitz of focused effort, he graduated in just under 2 years with a double major. Then his next make-or-break, his application and acceptance to Yale Law School.
This, other reading, and some personal anecdotes indicate that attending Yale is akin to being a Marine. Like the Marines, there's a very deep and particular culture, and it's a lifetime membership. In another make-or-break, he attracted the attention of one of his professors, who helped him navigate and take advantage of what he didn't realize he was being offered. He succeeded, and is a practicing attorney in California.
Throughout the book, Vance acknowledges the people who helped him. Looking back as an adult, (only 31 when he wrote this book in 2016) he sees very clearly both their assistance and the randomness of his success. He recognizes the truth and complexity of his phoenix-like rise from the ashes of his culture. This is the poetry and the lament of his Hillbilly Elegy.
No comments:
Post a Comment