PRAISE FOR APPALACHIAN RECKONING “In this illuminating and wide-ranging collection, the authors do more than just debunk the simplistic portrayal of white poverty found in Hillbilly Elegy. They profoundly engage with the class, racial, and political reasons behind a Silicon Valley millionaire’s sudden triumph as the most popular spokesman for what one contributor cleverly calls ‘Trumpalachia.’ This book is a powerful corrective to the imperfect stories told of the white working class, rural life, mountain folk, and the elusive American Dream.” —Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America “So often the song of this place has been reduced to a single off-key voice out of tune and out of touch. Appalachian Reckoning is the sound of the choir, pitch perfect in its capturing of these mountains and their people. This book is not only beautiful, but needed.” —David Joy, author of The Line That Held Us “This edited volume continues the rich Appalachian studies tradition of pushing back against one-sided caricatures of Appalachian people. The essays, poems, and photo-essays in this book demonstrate the diversity of Appalachian perspectives on the serious problems facing our nation as well as the role that myths about Appalachia continue to play in US policy debates. This is a must- read for everyone who read (or refused to read) J. D. Vance’s deeply flawed, best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.” —Shaunna Scott, University of Kentucky APPALACHIAN RECKONING A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy APPALACHIAN RECKONING A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy Edited by ANTHONY HARKINS AND MEREDITH McCARROLL west virginia university press morgantown 2019 Copyright © 2019 by West Virginia University Press All rights reserved First edition published 2019 by West Virginia University Press Printed in the United States of America ISBN: Cloth 978-1-946684-78-3 Paper 978-1-946684-79-0 Ebook 978-1-946684-80-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress Book and cover design by Than Saffel / WVU Press Cover image: A dirt road fades into a heavy fog rolling off Wayah Bald, Macon County, North Carolina, May 26, 2015. Photograph by Nathan Armes. CONTENTS Acknowledgments / ix Introduction: Why This Book? / Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll / 1 PART I. CONSIDERING HILLBILLY ELEGY INTERROGATING Hillbilly Elitism / T. R. C. Hutton / 21 Social Capital / Jeff Mann / 34 Once Upon a Time in “Trumpalachia”: Hillbilly Elegy, Personal Choice, and the Blame Game / Dwight B. Billings / 38 Stereotypes on the Syllabus: Exploring Hillbilly Elegy’s Use as an Instructional Text at Colleges and Universities / Elizabeth Catte / 60 Benham, Kentucky, Coal Miner / Wise County, Virginia, Landscape / Theresa Burriss / 80 Panning for Gold: A Reflection of Life from Appalachia / Ricardo Nazario y Colón / 84 Will the Real Hillbilly Please Stand Up? Urban Appalachian Migration and Culture Seen through the Lens of Hillbilly Elegy / Roger Guy / 86 v CONTENTS What Hillbilly Elegy Reveals about Race in Twenty-First-Century America / Lisa R. Pruitt / 105 Prisons Are Not Innovation / Lou Murrey / 134 Down and Out in Middletown and Jackson: Drugs, Dependency, and Decline in J. D. Vance’s Capitalist Realism / Travis Linnemann and Corina Medley / 136 RESPONDING Keep Your “Elegy”: The Appalachia I Know Is Very Much Alive / Ivy Brashear / 157 HE Said/SHE Said / Crystal Good / 169 The Hillbilly Miracle and the Fall / Michael E. Maloney / 171 Elegies / Dana Wildsmith / 188 In Defense of J. D. Vance / Kelli Hansel Haywood / 189 It’s Crazy Around Here, I Don’t Know What to Do about It, and I’m Just a Kid / Allen Johnson / 199 “Falling in Love,” Balsam Bald, the Blue Ridge Parkway, 1982 / Danielle Dulken / 226 Black Hillbillies Have No Time for Elegies / William H. Turner / 229 PART II. BEYOND HILLBILLY ELEGY Nothing Familiar / Jesse Graves / 246 History / Jesse Graves / 247 Tether and Plow / Jesse Graves / 248 On and On: Appalachian Accent and Academic Power / Meredith McCarroll / 249 Olivia’s Ninth Birthday Party / Rebecca Kiger / 254 Kentucky, Coming and Going / Kirstin L. Squint / 256 Resistance, or Our Most Worthy Habits / Richard Hague / 268 Notes on a Mountain Man / Jeremy B. Jones / 270 These Stories Sustain Me: The Wyrd-ness of My Appalachia / Edward Karshner / 278 CONTENTS Watch Children / Luke Travis / 290 The Mower—1933 / Robert Morgan / 292 Consolidate and Salvage / Chelsea Jack / 299 How Appalachian I Am / Robert Gipe / 309 Aunt Rita along the King Coal Highway, Mingo County, West Virginia / Roger May / 320 Holler / Keith S. Wilson / 322 Loving to Fool with Things / Rachel Wise / 331 Antebellum Cookbook / Kelly Norman Ellis / 350 How to Make Cornbread, or Thoughts on Being an Appalachian from Pennsylvania Who Calls Virginia Home but Now Lives in Georgia / Jim Minick / 356 Tonglen for My Mother / Linda Parsons / 370 Olivia at the Intersection / Meg Wilson / 374 Appalachian Apophenia, or The Psychogeography of Home / Jodie Childers / 376 Canary Dirge / Dale Marie Prenatt / 389 Poet, Priest, and “Poor White Trash” / Elizabeth Hadaway / 390 List of Contributors / 401 Sources and Permissions / 412 Index / 413 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are delighted to express our appreciation to the many people who helped this project come to fruition over the past year. We thank the original participants (all of whom are also contributors to this volume) to the roundtable discussion of reflections onHillbilly Elegy at the 2017 Appalachian Studies Association conference in Blacksburg, which marks one of the launching points of the project. Special thanks to Emily Satterwhite for her support for the roundtable, her abiding friendship, and her bringing the editors together at a memorable dinner in Blacksburg. Little did we know then that our professional lives would become so entwined in such a rewarding way! We also thank all the contributors to this book, with a special shout out to Theresa Burriss, who offered essential feedback at several steps in the project’s journey and was instrumental in selecting and organizing many of the poets and photographers in the book. Thanks to Roger May, who helped give voice to our desire to see the book as a project of bridge building, and who had a ready resource in Looking at Appalachia for soliciting images of and from the region. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the history department at Western Kentucky University and the dean of academic affairs at Bowdoin College that made possible our participation in the 2017 ASA conference. Finally, we offer our deep appreciation to our current and former editors at West Virginia University Press, Derek Krissoff and Andrew Berzanskis. Andrew offered enthusiastic support for our work in its earliest manifestations and strongly encouraged and facilitated our collaboration. This act of listening, finding common ground, and imagining the possibilities beyond either of our individual perspectives is what we hope the book will do for its readers. ix INTRODUCTION WHY THIS BOOK? Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll This is a book born out of frustration. This is a book born out of hope. It attempts to speak for no one and to give voice to many. This is a book that could have emerged without Hillbilly Elegy, but it was also created in the explicit context of a postelection, post–Hillbilly Elegy moment. It therefore attempts to respond to those who have felt they understand Appalachia “now that they have read Hillbilly Elegy” and to push back against and complicate those understandings. 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. Instead, the contributors to this book prioritize focusing on the region, reclaiming some of the talk about Appalachia, and offering ideas through the voices of many who have deep, if varied, lived experiences in and of Appalachia. Either explicitly or implicitly, begrudgingly acknowledged, directly repudiated, or partially welcomed, the shadow of Hillbilly Elegy hangs over this book. Not since Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1963) has a nonfiction book on Appalachia attracted such widespread national acclaim and success as J. D. Vance’s 2016 account, controversially subtitled A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. As of February 2018, the book had been on the New York Times best-seller list for a remarkable seventy-three weeks in a row and had sold in all formats combined well over a million copies. It ranked first in the combined E-book and nonfiction list for six weeks in 2017 and was the top selling nonfiction iBook of the year.1 It has also received broad 1 ANTHONYHARKINSANDMEREDITHMcCARROLL critical attention, and has been reviewed across a wide swath of the national media landscape from the National Review and the Wall Street Journal to All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Slate. In book reviews and on-air interview programs, it has been routinely described as “riveting” and “starkly honest.” “The most important book about America,” pronounced the Economist. David Brooks called it “essential reading.” Although such rave reviews have since somewhat abated, Vance himself continues in early 2018 to be a common presence on television and radio interview shows and as a guest speaker, and he was even for a time courted as a potential Republican Senate candidate in Ohio.2 Clearly Vance’s account of growing up in Middletown, Ohio, and visiting eastern Kentucky as a member of a multigenerational family scarred by drug abuse and alcoholism has resonated with many readers, including some Appalachians. Yet, just as obviously, Hillbilly Elegy and Vance have been criticized by many within the Appalachian region and beyond as anti- intellectual, overly anecdotal, and attempting to revitalize widely discredited “culture of poverty” explanations for persistent inequities in the region.