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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText>The Potomac Chapter book club will meet at John and Sandy’s home: 810 22nd street South, Arlington, Virginia 22202 on Tuesday November 14 at 7:00 pm.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The book is Hillbilly Elegy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I will send out a dinner menu soon.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>As I discussed at the meeting I am having email problems. I am transitioning to this address.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="mailto:Jwh100@outlook.com">Jwh100@outlook.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Here are some questions.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Hillbilly_Elegy_Discussion_Questions_Go_Big_Read_2017-2018.pdf<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Suggested Discussion Questions for J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>1. In his introduction to Hillbilly Elegy, Vance writes, “I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>that spiritual and material poverty has on their children” (p. 2) and states that for the people of Appalachia—the people with whom he identifies—“poverty<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>is a family tradition” (p. 3). Certainly poverty is a nationwide epidemic, but why does Vance feel the cycle of generational poverty is persistent in the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Appalachian region and the cities nearby? Why is the American Dream particularly elusive for the residents of Jackson and Middletown? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>2. Vance discusses the inner conflict he feels as someone who has moved from poverty into a higher social class, musing that “Sometimes I view members<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>of the elite with an almost primal scorn... But I have to give it to them: Their children are happier and healthier, their divorce rates lower, their church<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>attendance higher, their lives longer. These people are beating us at our own damned game” (p. 253). While Vance’s income bracket has presumably shifted,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>his statement indicates that his identity remains tied to his working-class roots. Is Vance now one of “these people,” or do his childhood experiences<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>excuse him from acknowledging his current privilege? Do you think it’s possible to completely shift one’s identity from one class to another? What factors<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>define social class, and how is class membership determined? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>3. In Vance’s view, race and class seem to be two separate issues. In the book’s introduction, he writes, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>“This is not a story about why white people have more to complain about than black people or any other <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>group. That said, I do hope that readers of this book will be able to take from it an appreciation of how <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>class and family affect the poor without filtering their views through a racial prism” (p. 7-8). At the same <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>time, Vance discusses how people of different racial backgrounds experience the world. He cites <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>controversial political scientist Charles Murray’s 1984 book Losing Ground, calling it a “book about black <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>folks that could have been written about hillbillies” (p. 144). What does this comparison say about <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Vance’s view of race and class? Is it possible to look at how class and family affect the poor without <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>considering race? What does Vance mean when he says, “filtering their views through a racial prism”? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>4. While working in the Ohio Senate, the senators and policy staff Vance worked with were debating a bill to curb payday-lending practices. Vance observed<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>that these policymakers “had little appreciation for the role of payday lenders in the shadow economy that people like me occupied” (p. 185). Vance goes<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>on to say that using payday lending once allowed him to avoid a significant bank overdraft fee, and that payday lending helped to “solve important financial<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>problems” (p. 185). What is the role of payday lending? Is Vance’s experience representative of payday lending clients? Why does Vance include this anecdote<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>when discussing his own experience of poverty? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>5. Vance cites a report by the Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund stating that well over half of working-class people had suffered at least one adverse childhood<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>experience (ACE), and over 40 percent had experienced several (p. 226-7). He writes extensively about his own traumatic childhood: his mother’s drug addiction<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and arrest, the constant revolving door of father figures, and Papaw’s alcoholism, among others. Which of these experiences appear to affect Vance most<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>deeply, and why? How does the author cope with and eventually break free from such a difficult childhood? Although Vance acknowledges Mamaw’s and Papaw’s<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>tumultuous marriage as a key factor in his mother’s troubles—“Mom is the Vance child who lost the game of statistics” (p. 232)—in what ways do his grandparents’<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>actions and attitude contribute to his success? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>6. Throughout his memoir, Vance talks about government policy and programs. At one point in the story, he describes his experience working at a grocery<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>store and his encounters with customers using food stamps: I “learned how people gamed the welfare system. They’d buy two dozen-packs of soda with food<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>stamps and then sell them at a discount for cash. They’d ring up their orders separately, buying food with food stamps, and beer, wine, and cigarettes<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>with cash” (p. 139). How does Vance portray people receiving government assistance? How does this compare with his portrayal of his own family’s poverty?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>What other factors might impact the way people prioritize their spending? Are there other issues and complexities that contribute to the poverty he witnesses?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>7. Poverty drives many residents of Jackson and other Appalachian communities to migrate to industrialized towns with better employment opportunities,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>but those opportunities gradually erode. What role does globalization play in industrialized communities like Middletown? What factors cause some residents<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>to stay, despite the economic warning signs? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>8. Vance provides many examples of lives interrupted and plagued by addiction to alcohol and drugs, including his own mother’s. Though his mother’s drug<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>addiction is ultimately what forces Vance to choose to permanently live with Mamaw instead of his mother, Mamaw persuades him to help his mother cheat<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>on a drug test, saying, “I know this isn’t right, honey. But she’s your mother and she’s my daughter. And maybe, if we help her this time, she’ll finally<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>learn her lesson” (p. 131). Throughout their lives, Vance’s mother struggles with her drug addiction, and Vance struggles with how much to help her, financially<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and emotionally. Were Vance and Mamaw enabling his mother to continue using drugs by helping her pass the drug test? What are some other examples of drug<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>use that Vance includes in the book? Does his analysis of the drug epidemic provide a clear portrait of the problems facing America? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>9. In the book’s introduction, Vance states that his success had little to do with his own intelligence or extraordinary ability, and much more to do with<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>“a handful of loving people” who rescued him (p. 2). Despite this, throughout the book Vance draws attention again and again to the element of personal<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>responsibility, perhaps nowhere so clearly as in relating Mamaw’s flood parable: “God helps those who help themselves” (p. 87). Where else do you see this<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>tension between personal responsibility and the need for familial, governmental, or social support? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>10. According to Vance, Mamaw “loathed disloyalty, and there was no greater disloyalty than class betrayal” (p. 15). Later in the book, Vance relates a<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>story in which he cannot bring himself to tell a stranger at a gas station that he is a student at Yale, acknowledging that this incident: “highlights<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the inner conflict inspired by rapid upward mobility: I had lied to a stranger to avoid feeling like a traitor” (p. 205). Vance has achieved everything<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Mamaw wished for him, so why does his success feel like a betrayal? In what way does Vance’s success echo or conflict with the role models he encountered<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>throughout his life (e.g., the Blanton men, Mamaw and Papaw, his biological father)? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>11. Reflecting upon his service in the Marine Corps and his childhood, Vance states, “Psychologists call it ‘learned helplessness’ when a person believes,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life… If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>learned willfulness” (p. 163). What do you think Vance means by this statement? How did the Marine Corps change Vance? What life skills did he find especially<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>valuable, and how did his service, particularly his time in Iraq, affect his college experience and his perception of fellow students at Ohio State? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>12. Vance discusses education in a multitude of ways. At one point he states, “In Middletown, 20 percent of the public high school’s entering freshmen<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>won’t make it to graduation. Most won’t graduate from college” (p. 56). Though Vance struggled in school through much of his childhood, when he stayed<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>with his grandmother his senior year, he was able to focus on school and found teachers who inspired his love of learning (p. 151). He remembers when Mamaw<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>spent $180 on a graphing calculator when they had little money for other things like cell phones and nice clothes (p. 137). In the end, Vance goes on to<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>earn a law degree from Yale. How does Vance view the role of education in society and its impact on his own life? What are the factors that allow someone<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>to excel in school? And what is society’s role in ensuring external factors don’t impede educational opportunities? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>13. In spite of his identity as a tall, white, straight male, Vance felt out of place at Yale, noting, “A part of me had thought I’d finally be revealed<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>as an intellectual fraud, that the administration would realize they’d made a terrible mistake and send me back to Middletown with their sincerest apologies”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>(p. 201). From confusing financial aid forms, to social class signifiers (“tap or sparkling” water), to critical steps for professional advancement (membership<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>in law journals), first-generation college students often encounter intentional or unintentional gatekeeping mechanisms which can communicate to these<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>students that they don’t belong. What can be done to, as Vance puts it, “create a space for the J.D.s” (p. 256) of the world in higher education? How do<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>systems work to discourage upward mobility and keep people within their social groups? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>14. Given the examples he encountered throughout his life, Vance appears to associate religiosity and church attendance with success, and social isolation<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>with poverty and poor choices. For Vance, religion also appears to be inextricably tied to familial acceptance. Reflecting on his inability to ask his<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>father questions about evangelical theology, Vance notes: “I didn’t know whether he’d tell me I was a spawn of Satan and send me away” (p. 124). In his<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>conclusion, Vance positions the young man Brian’s precarious fate with, among other things, “whether he can access a church that teaches him lessons of<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Christian love, family, and purpose” (p. 255). Does religion play a role in upward social mobility? Is participation in a religious group necessary for<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>personal and economic success? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>15. In chapter 11, Vance talks about conspiracy theories that he hears in his community. For example, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>he describes how people believe that President Barack Obama was neither born in the U.S. nor a <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Christian. Vance asserts that Obama “feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both” (p. 191). However, ten <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>pages later, Vance then recounts that “Yale had educated two of the three most recent Supreme Court <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>justices and two of the six most recent presidents, not to mention the sitting secretary of state (Hillary <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Clinton)” (p. 202). This suggests that the questioning of President Obama’s birthplace and religion was <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>unique among high-level government officials. Why did Obama’s success “strike at the heart of [this <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>community’s] deepest insecurities” (p. 191) in a way that other government officials’ success did <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>not? Does this narrative of “elitism” serve to mask other forms of exclusion, including racism? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>16. In the introduction, Vance provides multiple reasons for writing his memoir and suggests that he wants people to understand the lives of poor people.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>When reading the book, do you see any tension between Vance’s telling of his own story and his cultural analysis of the “hillbilly” way of life? Can one<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>person’s experience represent an entire group’s? Is Vance’s book more successful as a memoir, or as a cultural analysis? Why? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>17. A number of people have pointed to Hillbilly Elegy to explain the results of the 2016 election. In the memoir, Vance recalls how at the age of 17,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>he realized that the “‘party of the working man’—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be” (p. 140). He goes on to argue that people in Appalachia<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and the South “went from being staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation” (p. 140), and attributes a big part of this shift<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>to white working-class people seeing other poor people take advantage of government assistance. Do you agree with Vance’s assertion? Are there challenges<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>in using one individual’s experience to explain larger social shifts? Do you think this book explains the results of the 2016 election? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Questions courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Madison Public Library <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>For more information please visit gobigread.wisc.edu<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>