Angela Mogin
asked:
After reading this book, I find that any empahty I might have had for the people depicted in the book has disappeared. They seem self-destructive in the extreme. Does anyone else feel that way?
To answer questions about
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,
please sign up.
Atul Mamtora
Having read this book in one seating,i am not able to fathom that even the poorest person in US has far more life choices,having never gone hungry and other privileges like in Asia or Africa etc. Why is it that immigrants coming from eastern Asia countries like India(I was born In India and never had even refrigerator until 24) or Korea or China etc. never have any of these symptoms like opiod addiction deaths or issues raised by Vance?
Yvonne Page
No, I believe one has to live in this kind of environment to empathize. Sure we all make poor choices however some of us have been privileged and never seen things this book describes. Read "Evicted" by Matthew Desmond.
Mary
Yes, that was one of my takeaways from the book. The author mentions several times that the people he knows and is documenting often seem to be victims of their own poor choices. My mom's family is Scots-Irish, from Ohio by way of Kentucky and I saw a lot of just what he describes in the book.
Sandy
I understand your question very much! I appreciate your honesty and hope you continue to search for a way to understanding and empathy.
I felt sad about the suffering discussed in the book probably because I knew someone personally, who when he was eight or nine years old was an extremely talented, athletic, healthy, smart boy. It seemed he had the world waiting for him, but he went the path of early fatherhood, minimum wage jobs/welfare dependency, homelessness, alcohol abuse, obesity. I thought about him a lot while reading this book. His parental circumstances were similar to Vance's.
And as a white person, I feel sad at how disconnected I am to other white people. These divisions are tragic.
I felt sad about the suffering discussed in the book probably because I knew someone personally, who when he was eight or nine years old was an extremely talented, athletic, healthy, smart boy. It seemed he had the world waiting for him, but he went the path of early fatherhood, minimum wage jobs/welfare dependency, homelessness, alcohol abuse, obesity. I thought about him a lot while reading this book. His parental circumstances were similar to Vance's.
And as a white person, I feel sad at how disconnected I am to other white people. These divisions are tragic.
Cathy
I think the family is quite dysfunctional. They don't know how to make good choices, because they hadn't seen good choices made by their parents, or them by their parents.
Also that English/Scotch/Irish can be victims of alcohol abuse, which can cause it's own set of problems: Failure to hold a job which causes a lack of money, arguing that turns into physical abuse, etc This I know, I lived with it. My mom's family is German, back several 100s of years. My dad's mother was German/Swiss. My dad's father, on the other hand, is primarily Irish and Scottish and he was a mean drunk, I know because he lived with us. There was a padlock on a refrigerator in our garage that held any alcohol. He'd lost his license to drive permanently. He was a home builder and all the contractors who hired him had to provide transportation, a driver who could not weaken for requests to stop for alcohol.
Also that English/Scotch/Irish can be victims of alcohol abuse, which can cause it's own set of problems: Failure to hold a job which causes a lack of money, arguing that turns into physical abuse, etc This I know, I lived with it. My mom's family is German, back several 100s of years. My dad's mother was German/Swiss. My dad's father, on the other hand, is primarily Irish and Scottish and he was a mean drunk, I know because he lived with us. There was a padlock on a refrigerator in our garage that held any alcohol. He'd lost his license to drive permanently. He was a home builder and all the contractors who hired him had to provide transportation, a driver who could not weaken for requests to stop for alcohol.
Rose
I hate to admit it but yes.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more