Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture

One mode by which Vance seeks to differentiate hillbilly culture from Anglo cultures of other regions of the U.S. is through the large and comparably unstructured family units of Appalachians, his own family being his chief example. Vance grows up in households where his mom is working, addicted to drugs, or both, and with a rotating cast of father figures, including his biological father, his adoptive father, and a series of other men his mother is married to and/or dating. Like many other Appalachians (and non-Appalachians), Vance is raised as much by his grandparents as he is by a parent, a common trait among many communities hovering at or below the poverty line. His sister, Lindsay, often functions in a quasi-parental role as well. Vance offers, “We didn’t live a peaceful life in a small nuclear family. We lived a chaotic life in big groups of aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins” (69).

Migration has both psychological and sociological constructs in Hillbilly Elegy. For Vance, one form his migration takes is that of migrating from one class to another. He transcends his poverty and broken Ohio home to become a Yale Law School graduate and member of the upper-middle class.