"Hillbilly is a pejorative, the same as any other derogatory descriptor assigned to a racial, ethnic or cultural group. It doesn’t matter that it was used in the title of a television show and on bread wrappers. It’s offensive, hurtful and intended to belittle. Anyone who has been the target of the word knows its sting.
That Vance chose to mainstream the smear on his book cover says a lot about how he views his own people."
~ Nolan Finley
I read Hillbilly Elegy just after I read Trevor Noah’s memoire Born A Crime. They both grew up in desperately poor areas riddled with crime and drug use. The difference in perspective was striking. Noah tried to understand and explain the social forces that caused people to violate the law from a perspective of love and compassion. In contrast, Vance refused to look at laws that require criminal behavior by the poor to survive and he blamed the people he grew up for continuing to be poor, citing their failings and lack of character. It is telling that Vance is intimately familiar with Appalachia, but lacks understanding as to how to fix it, instead crediting himself with superior ability for getting out and blaming those who remain.
William Lindsey 
Cynthia