Synopsis
I wrote Hillbilly Rising in 2017 as a direct response to JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. Something in my DNA was energized and I could not stop writing. I was shocked that he would promote stereotypes of Appalachian people as dumb, lazy, and drug-addicted. His family story was just a story and fine with me. But, when the NY Times called it a Sociological Analysis, I had to differ. I have a graduate degree in Sociology and came from a very similar background as JD. Hillbilly Elegy was NOT a Sociological Analysis to be shared as such at major universities. It was the story of one family.
Hillbilly Rising is primarily a memoir of my life rising after being called “hillbilly” in the worst sense of the word. Not being able to make a living on the farms where we lived in Kentucky, my family left on the “hillbilly highway” to move to a working-class town, Carpentersville, Illinois, so that my parents could work in factories. They saved enough money to buy a home and then came back to KY.
My dad always told the story about me as an 8-year-old working in the tobacco patch, one day raising my arms to the heavens and saying, “God, I don’t know what it is, but I want to go to college.” With a lot of support and very hard work, my prayers were answered.
Appalachia is not dead or dying so an elegy is not needed, JD. Appalachia is rising! We rise together to co-create; I grew up hearing we must pray hard, work hard, and play hard.
Now, the planet is faced with new challenges, threats to our existence. The time has come to have a bigger vision than our identities that divide us. The Kosmos (with a K to indicate both the scientific cosmos and the spiritual working together) is calling us to seek the energy of Co-Creation and Re-Birth, dancing beyond the divisions and polarization. My daddy always said, “An enemy is someone you don’t know well enough yet” and “What does comfort have to do with real life?” The time is now to hear God, Spirit, the Collective or whatever word you use for God of the Kosmos asking us to both see how small each of us is and to value the preciousness of human life, beyond wars about our very small identities.
