Now that J.D. Vance and his Hillbilly Elegy memoir are big in the news again, I’ve been reading reactions (pre-VP GOP nomination) to his story of escaping Appalachia by people who have actually lived in or studied Appalachia. Vance’s story is not of Appalachia but of escaping a poverty-stricken small town in the Rust Belt while having a dysfunctional family with roots in Appalachia. (See a map of the Appalachian region here, not all impoverished.) The memoir is said to be “a critique of the country’s treatment of white blue-collar workers” and probably that’s where the problems lie.

I did not read Vance’s memoir or see the movie, just enjoyed reading the comments and reviews of others with LIVED experiences in Appalachia. The takeaway is that you can’t really know what a community or group of people are like based on ONE person’s stories, and certainly not on one person’s opinions. Writers should not be making broad statements assuming what they see or experienced is what it’s ALL like.

Hillbilly Elegy criticisms include that Vance generalizes Appalachian people and their lives and tells what’s wrong with them. It’s funny to read reviews from people who had very different experiences in their impoverished real Appalachian lives, even someone who grew up poor in a downtrodden Ohio town near where Vance was raised. It is misleading and downright wrong to make sweeping generalizing statements, and stereotyping is bad. Drunks who fight and beat their wives are “the embodiment of the Appalachian man” – yikes! Not everyone in your area, your family, your class of people, your whatever, is the same or has the same opinion as you. And, of course, readers need to be astute enough to know this and not make generalizations on their own either. Yeah, right. Again, as writer, you should not be making broad generalizations look like fact.

Vance had family dysfunction but did have a caring though rough “Mamaw” who raised him, pushed independence and self-sufficiency, and tried to get him to do well in school, but it’s the Marines that really changed him and moved him forward. And he took advantage of the great benefit of the military paying for college. Not sure how he got into Yale, but it would be interesting to read how he had to adjust to be among the elite, coming from his outsider background. A life takeaway is that having good, supportive people around you or involvement in a good organization that steers you in a good direction can make a huge difference. Look for the helpers, and for good luck, and give credit.

Similarly, another criticism of the Hillbilly Elegy escape story is his implication that if he can do it, anyone can, which Appalachian-raised readers say ignores the deep feelings of hopelessness from the struggle of just daily living, and I’d add especially in a depressed-area bubble, and especially for women tied to low expectations and low-level education due to too-early childbearing. It’s hard to rise above that kind of exhaustive poverty and it can easily lead to alcoholism and drug use to cope. Blaming people for not being strong enough or smart or lucky like you looks bad on you. Instead, give insight of what your situation was like but encourage and inspire. Those are very good reasons to write your stories for others to read. And learning about difficult lives can give us empathy and maybe motivate us to somehow help. Real heroes help others up.

Many readers say Vance’s writing is very good and he has an interesting story and observations, but others see stereotypes, generalizations, and blaming people for staying poor. He gives simplistic (or misleading, even offensive) thoughts and opinions of people in poverty. You’d have to read for yourself.

I recommend Mary Karr’s rough and tumble memoirs that tell how she eventually rose from an extremely dysfunctional childhood in a struggling blue-collar area—without making herself the hero of her story, denigrating others as less than, and being an armchair sociologist.