Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy

This is an excellent book that deftly challenges Vance's limited and dishonest Hillbilly Elegy!

…viewpoints that are reflective of a diverse culture and region. A interesting, well-composed counter to the flatness and not-so-subtle holier-than-thou tone of Elegy.

I got this book f,or my father. He said it was a good read. He read Hillbilly Elegy first amd the two went together well.

Great book - should have been called "Appalachia Fights Back." This collection of essays tells you what you actually need to know about Appalachia, not the cliches and stereotypes that have been perpetrated for generations, most recently by JD Vance (whose book should have been called "Hillbilly Reprimand," according to one of this book's contributors).If you're part of affluent America and think Appalachia is an outlier, a curiosity that doesn't matter, think again - spend $20 on this book and get educated. It's a great read that will open your eyes!

An ultimately and urgently necessary response to Hillbilly Elegy, expertly shading and deepening the full experience of being Appalachian, and a delightful, challenging mix of perspectives, voice and approaches. It’s both academic and popular writing, and I can see it becoming a great English 101 text.

Loved the book's assessment of the Appalachian region. So much better more insightful than that awful Hillbilly Elegy. In fact it is a response to and disagreeing with most if not all of Hillbilly Elegy. Also consider reading my book titled Appalachian Roots Revisited...and maneuvering Life's Briar Patch Beyond that discusses my reality of the region. Anything is better than Hillbilly Elegy.

Story of Appalachians not complete without this book. We'll thought out with multiple credible references.A collection of well communicated perspectives based on Vance's Hillbilly Elegy

In reading this review it helps to recall that neo-marxism, though called a political or economic philosophy, is actually a religion, as rigid and dogmatic as the most insular of any of the traditional ones. So unless one has been indoctrinated or at least studied its idiosyncratic terms, much of the prose presents as gibberish. To one who isn't tasked with reading it I would recommend skimming the gibberish. (Those who might be offended by this may be comforted by the alternative description of it as a shared delusional system.)Its thesis would appear to be that in "Hillbilly Elegy", Vance has deeply offended all the Appalachians who matter (the only ones who matter being the leftist pseudointellectuals such as themselves). Further reading between the lines and interpretation of their ideas into the common language reveals that it would appear that they have taken offense at Vance's writing but deeper offense at both his success and the fact that his book is popular among those whom they don't count as worthy. (That group being all the conservatives, liberals, neoliberals and others whose politics they consider to be shades of right wing extremism, as well as the proles who just don't know any better and whom they think need to be led away from reading him.)In essence they would appear to fear that a popular opinion other than their own will somehow undermine their long-anticipated revolution. Let me see if I can summarize this book in a single sentence. 'Vance is a puppet of the vast right wing capitalist conspiracy, seeking to marginalize and oppress the poor downtrodden masses while lining the pockets of the wealthy capitalist fascists.' All the mention of Appalachia is mere window dressing to divert attention from this point.Despite its serious flaws this book is more readable than Elizabeth Catte's incoherent diatribe "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia". Some of its essays do make some sense to a person unschooled in dialectic materialism. But then just when I think there may be some sense here it turns out the next essay is a poem of little relevance or some other equally inane diversion. Among the more coherent essays is a strawman argument in favor of Vance's book, which allows them something to 'refute' elsewhere in the book.Why do I focus on this book's form and intent rather than content? I read this book (after paying full asking price for a used copy) to practice my skill in spotting leftist political propaganda, of which it is very full. There are typical patterns which emerge and can be seen anywhere the lefties push their boundaries of influence. Which leads me to a moment of sympathy for students required to purchase a copy for one college course or another. Of irreplaceable value in formulation of college essays is the book "Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy" by Robert Arp, et al.(edited for spelling sentence structure)