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Starting the Vance Antidote ! Shillbilly

#BooksForChristmas

This was a holdover from November #nfn2020. I took a break from it to read something lighter. I have wanted to read this since it came out, but I‘m glad I didn‘t buy it. About half the book are essays responding to Hillbilly Elegy, & the rest is poetry, family stories about Appalachia, & other essays. There were some interesting essays—I liked most of the personal stories—but this is still an almost so-so rating.

Since we are preparing for NF November, I thought I‘d share something a friend posted. The movie is coming out soon, but many Appalachian writers would rather people read books that provide a more accurate picture of Appalachia. I‘ve only read a few of these, so I‘m going to put more on my TBR. #nfnov

I look forward to this podcast every week! A wonderful discussion on the South and its people. This week is a look at Appalachia in response to Hillbilly Elegy with a recommendation for the tagged book.

"[...] the public often finds it difficult to elevate the expertise of more than one member of an underrepresented group at a time. The American Conservative, for example, praised Hillbilly Elegy for doing 'for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates's book did for poor black people [...],' a warm comparison from a publication critical of Coates but one that nonetheless demonstrates that, to some, marginalized individuals need but one champion."

Stella's favorite part of reading time is getting to chew on my favorite bookmark 😸

"Also, don't blame poor people [for Trump's election]; many of them didn't vote, and besides that, data from the primaries show that Trump supporters' yearly income averaged $72,000, well above the national average and above those of Clinton and Sanders supporters. The typical Trump voter was not a poor hillbilly. And please, don't blame Trumpalachia."

I read Hillbilly Elegy when it first came out 3 years ago, and I remember feeling ambivalent toward it: on the one hand, I value memoir as a medium in which a person finds shareable truths in their own lived experience, but on the other, it was definitely an overly simplistic review of Appalachia as a whole. Three years later, here's a book in which people much smarter (and significantly more Appalchian) than me put those feelings into words.

This week on My Reading Life, I interview Kelli Hansel (Haywood) and find out how she first fell in love with books!
http://www.athinsliceofanxiety.com/2019/08/what-are-five-books-you-loved-for-one...
#athinsliceofanxiety #kellihanselhaywood #myreadinglife #interview #booksforlife

Check out this article from The Bitter Southerner: https://bit.ly/2XkBeBm
Great assessment of who should participate in shaping the Appalachian narrative/image. Having grown up in and around Appalachia, letting “outsiders“ claim that part of the allure is in how Appalachians “embrace“ poverty sickens me. Talk about infantilizing 🙄

Great links in the article, such as this one to photos and stories: https://bit.ly/2LzsqQM

Afternoon deck reading.

“I felt like Ivy Rowe in Lee Smith‘s Fair and Tender Ladies when she says that she‘s like her daddy and needs a mountain to ‘set her eyes against.‘”

Three of those four thinkers of “marginal thought” received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

I have been waiting on this hold to come in from the library. Although I read Hillbilly Elegy and view it as one white man‘s story, I balk at the idea those not from Appalachia might view it as a larger signifier of the experiences of the people of Appalachia(who are not homogenous). I grew up in West Virginia- our state mascot is the Mountaineer but usually we are called hillbillies. I have been waiting for this response from WVU Press. Speak.

Book mail is by far the best kind of mail!
#athinsliceofanxiety #appalachia #jdvance #hillbillyelegy #bookmail

Get it together with your review copies, publishers. #bookbloggers #bookbloggerproblems

A few pages into the intro and I need to set it down for the deep breathing. There is a wealth of empirical evidence on how culture exacerbates poverty. The “culture of poverty” hasn‘t been discredited. A bunch of people who don‘t give a damn about us have attempted to make it taboo for political reasons. Talk about anti-intellectual! #HillbillyStudies

Starting this one today. Academic essays, so it will probably take me a while to finish. #HillbillyStudies