Pantsuit Politics Book Club: Hillbilly Elegy
Sarah discusses the Pantsuit Politics Book Club March pick - J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy with Jean, a stay-at-home mom from Central New York who was unimpressed with the best seller.
Show Notes
Jean's beginning thoughts on J.D. Vance and Hillbilly Elegy
"He is a bad source for what he is trying to get you to understand about these people. He is intrinsically different and always was because while the people he was talking about had the fuck it mentality, he didn't. he wanted out and knew it. he used the military as many often do to pull himself out. something that any of the others could do but dont because theyve already given up. like the bird that doesnt leave the cage when the doors open. He cant understand his own people and maybe thats why he comes off as judgy, because hes trying to tell a story from a mold he doesnt fit.
My degree is in Psych, I have a deep rooted desire to understand why people think the way they do. I expected him to be a first hand source to aid in that understanding, but hes not. He is the outsider looking in at his own people because of that intrinsic difference between his drive and their lack of it, which means even he doesnt understand why they do and think the way they do.
We also discussed:
Arlie Russell Hochschild Strangers in their own Land
James Frey's A Million Little Pieces
The Pantsuit Politics Book Club will be reading The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic by Ganesh Sitaraman.