Months ago I came across a recorded book that I immediately downloaded. The little review on screen introduced the subject(s) as Appalachian refuse made good. The author was in a car down where he grew up, Middlefield, Ohio
I downloaded Hillbilly Elegy; it sounded like one more book about my dad's life, sans the car. Around that time I read a string of books about the little guy persevering for a small win against Big Industry/Pharma/Chemical/Legal America.
Another was Just Mercy, way further south, but still about poor people running out of resources against unrestrained power. I'm an Ohioan born and raised watching Appalachian transplants coming to make good in factories on all four corners of this state, and in between, north and south, east and west.
Some did OK, some did not. You may remember Starlett, a gifted artist who battled drugs all her adult life. She gave up life back in her heaven on earth, Coker Creek, Tennessee. I've been around for seven decades now, seeing the turning wheels that put chemicals in creeks and more drugs than can be consumed by the entire world out for Americans to have.
Hillbilly Elegy became a Ron Howard film that, again, I merely stumbled across. I had no idea I was watching Glenn Close until I read others assessments of the film. The film deviated from the book in several unimportant ways. For me, it was another film dedicated to the trashing of America in all the parts of the heartland these manufacturers have used and left.
Why aren't they leaving behind enough money to educate the children of all the men and women who came to work for them. Why aren't they cleaning up the land, water and air they polluted. Why is it taking thousands of investigative attorney hours to show all the laws broken, violated, just to get a ruling for a stingy bit of remediation.
I could continue rambling on, as seems to be my best ability these last several years. I wrote this because I see so much truth in Hillbilly Elegy, both the book and the film. The point to me is not simply the triumph of one young man's family, but the concentric circle surrounding the story and reaching out to all corners of both my state and my country.
Those responsible for all the kinds of pollution are not held accountable or responsible. The success of one young man is wonderful; the surroundings he succeeded against, reprehensible.
I should go back and edit this screed into a tight couple of paragraphs about the shortcomings of hillbillies and how they can be fixed, especially before they fall for another bad president. And I still am capable of that, but it would take me a week, and even then would not erase one Pentecostal church offering a solution to poverty and ignorance, when the solution actually is the accountability of the people who underwrote the problem.
Well said. The devastation unleashed upon the poorest of the poor is just heart rending. The people made wealthy by it never recover the damage they left.
ReplyDeleteA profound, articulate, sensitive piece, filled with truth. Well done, Joanne.
ReplyDeleteSweet photo of the children. I am watching Hillbilly Elegy, watched the first half yesterday, and it is impressive thus far. Glenn Close is brilliant in it and completely transformed into her character. Did you read The Giver of Stars by Jo Jo Moyes, set in Kentucky in the poverty stricken hills. People push back against the coal mines.
ReplyDeleteAll too true and all too sad.
ReplyDeleteI see the catholic tradition of submission and resignation here in the older generation in Costa Rica which has militates against the rule of the oligsrchy that keeps people poor.....as if 'pie in the sky when you die' compensates for seeing your kids without opportunities to use their intelligence and talent. Younger people are not so taen i n...but they have one hell of an uphill struggle against a system which has been bleeding thr country dry since the 1980s.
Great post Joanne. I have been hearing a lot about Hillbilly Elegy and I know anything Ron Howard does is generally well worth your time. I grew up in the south in areas where everyone was poor. It was not until I was older that I realized how much certain wealthy groups took advantage of the poor population. You are right, those responsible for pollution and other problems are never held accountable.
ReplyDeletethe story of humans throughout history. humans are, for all our good parts, reprehensible creatures.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of the movies A Civil Action starring John Travolta and Erin Brockovich starring Julia Roberts, both covering similar stories; big business that doesn't give two hoots for the land they destroy and the little people who get steamrollered as long as they make their money. It was shameful then and still shameful now.
ReplyDeleteSome have had hard lives, and the system, or lack of it, doesn't help.
ReplyDeleteOh I like this post. You clearly point out many problems that could be easily solved if money wasn't in the way.
ReplyDeleteThe only way corporations can be held accountable for the waste, pollution and human misery they cause is via strict governmental regulation. Corporations will not behave honourably, left to their own devices of greed and profit. So when governments fail to regulate, disaster results. Don't believe the lies about "small government" being better for everyone. It isn't. It's only good for letting corporations off the hook.
ReplyDeleteAdd to your list that so many children from that area do not have proper clothing and go hungry more often than not. It's criminal that this is happening in the United States. Hillbilly Elegy is a good movie.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Debra; corporations are greedy and won't do the right thing by choice. Sadly. I love your rant; you express yourself eloquently and with passion. I've been hearing a lot about Hillbilly Elegy. (mainly about the book)
ReplyDeleteIt's coincidental perhaps that last night I came across Hillbilly Effigy on Netflix. I hadn't heard of the movie or the book. Now I hope to at least watch the movie. I did try to read Just Mercy but the book was so popular at the library. I couldn't make much headway at the time so I'll have to return to it another day. I did catch the movie based on the book though. It was well done and I shed a lot of tears though I know my tears don't help anyone. I can never fathom the depths of evil people in this world.
ReplyDeleteThe endless injustice of the "them that has, gets" world. I hear your anger.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant , deep, thoughtful post, Joanne. They are shoved aside, poisoned and forgotten, no doubt. They truly need a champion.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet these pockets of poverty are huge trump supporters. I will never understand it. The disadvantaged supporting the very people who take advantage of them. I watched that movie tonight. I did not expect to like it, but I found it very moving.
ReplyDeleteI made a mistake in capitalizing Pentecostal. I should have written pentecostal, another evangelical evolution of religion. Driving through the hardscrabble, mountainous land of these people, the mountains go straight up on one side of the road and straight down the other. More bits of land scraped level are devoted to pentecostal churches than to food gardens. There is no living except working for wages. I've always believed the land shapes the people on it, and I can see how that happened anywhere people could not feed families or put them to bed under snug roofs.
DeleteHillbilly Elegy helped me to understand my in-laws. Sadly it was written after they had already passed. I read Just Mercy and I commend the lawyer's efforts for what he tried to do.
ReplyDeletebetty
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNot just Appalachia, but world wide. The very rich recognise no borders, and make themselves at home in too many places. At home on the backs, the broken hearts and damaged minds of too many.
And yes, I obviously need to track down Hillbilly Elegy.
That is a very moving post, Joanne, and "ranting" is one way to fight off weeping. Such a load of malpractices in the world, born outof greed and other negative virtues. The film I did not know, might have a look at it. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThis movie is playing on Netflix right now... I've passed on it every evening since it came on. Now I need to go back and watch it. My mother's family came from VA, and the Appalachian Mountains are very familiar to me. Her whole family relocated to San Diego back in the late 40's/early 50's. My mother was the eldest of seven children. If you want to study something fascinating, look into the Melungeon race of people who lived in those mountains. I have Melungeons in my ancestry. A proud people who were treated very badly.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. Thanks for the reference to follow.
DeleteI hear you re the damage that big corporations leave behind them when they've extracted what they want from the locality. It's a similar story here in Northern Ireland. All our rivers are polluted to some extent. A gold mining venture that threatens the environment is being bitterly opposed by locals. And so forth.
ReplyDeleteI have neither read the book nor seen the film. I think both fit into that category of "things I can do nothing about but which make me ill to think of" and I have backed off. I am terrible at avoiding that which I do not want to know. Or, actually, perhaps I am very good at it. And I know this is not the way to be.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post. Thought you might like this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/hillbilly-elegy-doesnt-reflect-the-appalachia-i-know/617228/ Also, there is a movie with Mark Ruffalo about DuPont poisoning the water, it was well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article. The kindness of good people is the engine of this country. If we ever turn on each other, it is the end.
DeleteWell-written, Joanne. I just finished the book, "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" which was about a woman in Kentucky who struggled to survive. The story is fiction but based on true stories of the poor, but determined, women who delivered library books to the poor families there.
ReplyDeleteWhy are there always people that want to keep others down?
I found Hillbilly Elegy very irritating, because Vance totally ignores that it took his joining the largest socialist organization in America - the military - and the dumb luck of marrying a socially savvy wife to get him out of poverty. I much prefer Hill Women by Cassie Chambers. The family she describes is far more like my Appalachian family. Nobody hooked on drugs, just poor people, not well educated, struggling to get by, who understood education was the key for their kids to escape that life. A lot of reviewers on amazon accuse Chambers of being "political" but she is a lawyer working with impoverished abused women, and you can't do that kind of work without dealing with how the system is set up to keep poor people down. If talking about how that is is "political," so be it.
ReplyDeleteI must read Chambers. I'll let you know. I agree the military is part of the "system" of this country, and I admire people who go through it and use it to expand their understanding, not become it.
DeleteChambers sounds like someone I should read.
DeleteThank you for the thought provoking post. Take care.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up about "Hillbilly Elegy". Now I am keen to see that film. Your post seems underpinned by a mixture of resignation and unrequited anger. You made me think of the water supply scandal in Flint, Michigan.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. The genre. It sucks.
DeleteVery well said. I've heard of the film, but didn't know it was based on a book.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that some British scholars study the Appellation dialect to find words which the English stopped using hundreds of years ago?
ReplyDeleteYes, especially the past perfect. Found in the islands, too.
DeleteRead the book, saw the movie, and have seen the reality while driving from Maryland to Knox County Ohio on old US Route 40 and state road 9 in OH.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Joanne, my thoughts exactly. So many are tearing his book and film apart. But you've nailed the problem. The wastelands left by these criminal corporations and their abuse of humanity is reprehensible. I remember seeing the top of a mountain completely shorn off from mining with suspect run off down to the towns around it and I wanted to cry. Even here in this pristine province, corporations have raped the land and extracted resources and left havoc behind them.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Strip mining and slag heaps! So much of that here in Onio, where there was enough coal to get at it that way.
DeleteGreat post. I will have to check the library for some of the mentioned books.
ReplyDeleteA few of the really rich did just that. Most of them didn't. I had a rich inventor grandfather who devoted lots of money to his church. By the time I inherited his money, there wasn't much left.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of this movie but have not seen it. I agree with you that many companies are not responsible. Some don't even try. I've worked for large companies and have felt they were responsible and cared about the employees.
ReplyDelete