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Well, Trump has announced his Vice President candidate and it's J.D. Vance. And, as luck would have it, or as if I knew something like this would happen, I finished reading Hillbilly Elegy last night.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis is a memoir of Vance's life while also serving up a slice of poor working class Americans (in this case, Appalachian hillbillies). Vance explores the American Dream when the hillbillies get ahold of it, weaving a story of the clash of economy and culture.

When we're young, we have an idealized notion of what it's like to be an adult. We sit in the backseat while our parents drive the car, thinking they have it all figured out. That, while we're imagining Spider-man swinging from streetlight to streetlight as we ride through the night, everything is fine. Everyone is safe. It never crosses our minds that they may be scared, worried, anxious or upset.

They drive on into the dark, outside of us. It's not until we reach adulthood, when we're scared, worried, anxious or upset that we realize that's how adulthood has always been.

J.D. recalls his tumultuous childhood through an adult lens. He finally has the perspective to understand what he was living through when, at the time, he was just trying to survive. He was surrounded by flawed adults: his drug-addicted mother, his Mamaw and Papaw, plenty of aunts and uncles, tied together by their hillbilly culture and driven by the desire to see the next generation has it better than they did.

They just didn't know how to deliver it.

And they end up in a self-perpetuating, self-fulfilling cycle that keeps them from moving onward and upward.

The hillbilly culture centers around the family and a very specific honor code. All of the family is involved in raising the children, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the kind of thing Hillary was talking about in It Takes a Village.

Vance's grandparents relocated from Kentucky to Ohio chasing a brighter economy, specifically in the steel industry. The steel workers at Armco Steel in Ohio had a pride in their work. Vance's grandfather knew every model of car that used Armco Steel. It meant something to him. He also didn't want his children and grandchildren to be stuck in a job that required such manual labor. Even so, the people of Middletown, OH grow up under a burden of the expectation of failure. No one thinks they are going to go anywhere. They think college is unreasonable, escape is out of reach. So they never leave. Even when the jobs leave, all the people with the means to leave go and the poor remain, with fewer and fewer opportunities, and no way out.

Vance details his eventual escape and the stumbling blocks along the way. He talks about finally making it into Yale and not understanding the unspoken rules of the upper middle/wealthy class (how to approach job interviews/which fork to use at fancy restaurants/how to pick a wine that goes with your meal). Another lesson to learn from Vance, a lesson he learned from Papaw, is that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing. Knowledge can be gained. Intelligence...well. You get what you got.

The last few chapters of the book outline the crisis that the poor communities are facing in the form of that self-perpetuating cycle.

If you are curious about the vice presidential-hopeful's policies, you'll get a good amount of guidance here. You'll see where he comes from, what he's passionate about.

Vance calls for personal accountability, familial accountability and community accountability. He doesn't think the government can solve all the problems, especially problems that are ingrained on a cultural level. He tells a story about the American Dream, that it's not something we're entitled to, it's something we are meant to chase. Not everyone enters the race in the same place, at the same time. In order to catch it, we need to navigate politics and culture together to achieve a higher goal.

That's what I got out of it, anyway. I don't know if you should read any books about America the weekend people are taking shots at a presidential candidate. It gives you some weird feelings.

Hillbilly Elegy is a quick read with insights into the way J.D. Vance's mind works. If you want in in-depth look at what motivates Trump's VP, take a look at it. You'll find it at your local library.

P.S. I didn't see the movie. So...this isn't a review of that.

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Kate works in production at LwC. She is an author. When she isn’t writing...who are we kidding? She’s always writing. You can find her here on X.