"Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy" Edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll--Book Review

This is a book which I should have immediately bought, read, and written about as soon as it was released in March 2019.  I'm only 13months late which is pretty good for me at times in my effort to keep up with my "To Be Read List".  The book was created as a response to the horribly defamatory "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" which I have written about in this blog a little over two years ago.  Since I mentioned "Hillbilly Elegy..." let me append the opening and concluding sentence of review of that drivel here: First and foremost, let me say unequivocally that the fact that I chose to read this book (Hillbilly Elegy...) and write about it on this blog should never be considered a recommendation that anyone read it."  No one, whether or not they consider themselves to be Appalachian, should ever read that book without first having read "Appalachian Values" by my friend Loyal Jones.  Although I am not totally pleased with "Appalachian Reckoning...", I will say also that it would be a good idea to read this book as well before entering the intellectual wasteland of J. D. Vance.  

And, since I have mentioned that piece of garbage, I have appended above the sentence with which I began and ended my thoughts on J. D. Vance's screed about the region of which he knows little and cares nothing: "Appalachian Reckoning..." was conceived and edited to be a response to Vance's diatribe in the form of essays, poetry, and a few photos and photo essays by various writers who perceive themselves to be native to and writing in the best interests of Appalachia.  It is a lengthy work of slightly over 400 pages and I read it, as I often do collections by numerous authors, in fits and starts because I prefer to allow one writer's work to congeal in my mind before I further muddy the water with more on the same topic(s) by other authors.  That is both an advantage and a disadvantage with a work of this size.  It greatly enhances the reader's ability to fully grasp the writing in a single essay and the collective total but simultaneously lengthens the time involved from start to finish in completing a book of this size.  But it a technique which I have utilized in my reading for many years, one to which I am long accustomed, and one which I believe makes me a better reader in the long run.

The list of authors in this book ranges from the editors themselves to established experts on the region such as Dwight Billings to others whose existence was relatively unknown and unheralded until the publication of this book.  They range in their areas of expertise across the spectrum of the written word including academics, essayists, novelists, photographers, and poets.  On the face of it all, they can be argued to have been a broadly based and well selected group of authors.  But, the number of genuine, proven experts on the sociology, history, and economics of the region is a bit thin.  While I found a few essays to be well reasoned, well written, and solidly grounded in knowledge of the region, I found at least one or two to be works which I doubt most other professional Appalachian editors would have included in a work intended to dispute, disprove, and de-legitimize Vance's misbegotten best seller.  At least one of the essays is at best an apology for Vance, and at worst, an attempt to justify his illogical conclusions and should never have been included in the book. Most of the poetry is above average, reasonably well written, and acceptable.  But I question the use of artistic works in general in an expository work intended to be a disputation of another which was mislabeled, based in a plethora of misconceptions, and  often accepted as being accurate in its conclusions.  I love poetry and even have one friend, Dale Marie Prenatt, who has an excellent poem in the book; but, I do not love poetry as a form of academic argumentation.  Let me go further and say that my argument about this aspect of the book is not against the poets or their poetry.  It is against the inclusion of that poetry in such a book with such a stated purpose.  

I have been aware for many years that there are three different definitions of Appalachia, which I have stated in this blog in other places.  While the Appalachian Mountain Range extends from Central Alabama to Newfoundland and Labrador in the maritime provinces of Canada   that definition is purely geographic and used primarily by the US Geologic Survey and other federal government agencies.

The Broad Geographical Map of The Appalachian Mountains--Photo by Thomas's Legion

 The definition of Appalachia which the US Congress and the Appalachian Regional Commission uses extends from Mississippi to Upstate New York and includes 35 counties in Alabama, 32 in Ohio, 52 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, and is purely a political and economic definition which came about over the years in congress as the need for votes to approve various pieces of pending legislation caused this mythical region to spread much like a fungus solely in the interest of pork barrel politics.

Appalachian Regional Commission Map by the ARC

The definition of Appalachia I use is purely cultural and is rooted in the work of early Appalachian scholars including John C. Campbell and Horace Kephart.  That definition does not cross the Ohio River and does not extend into the northeastern US beyond Western Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.  It only includes a small number of Alabama counties in the Sand Mountain area and does not remotely include any portion of Mississippi or Ohio.  For those who would belabor this definition, I urge you to go stand in the middle of the Ohio River and convince that little puddle that it does not constitute both a geographical and a cultural barrier. This final map which I have appended below is very close to my definition of the cultural region of Appalachia although, in my opinion, those counties of Pennsylvania which are included are not truly culturally Appalachian.  I also state for the record that for a more than three years I worked for a Pennsylvania based human services company and performed home visits all over the state while living for a year in Venango County Pennsylvania which is not remotely Appalachian but is included in the political and pork barrel definition of the region which is used by the Appalachian Regional Commission.  I also spent a year living in the Mid-Hudson region of New York State, some of which is included in the ARC map which is far too inclusive in terms of cultural accuracy.

Map of Cultural Appalachia by Medium.com

I freely admit that hundreds of thousands of native Appalachians left the region of Central and Southern Appalachia and moved into the midwest and industrial north.  Some of them remain there as displaced Appalachians but their descendants are not Appalachian in any way other than heritage. Moving to Appalachia or Watts or Harlem does not make a non-native of any of these areas a legitimate Appalachian, African American, or Hispanic.

Now, let's get back to my discussion of the book in question, "Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy".  In conclusion, it is a generally readable and enjoyable book.  But I do not remotely believe that the book has yet been published which will serve as the best, most logical, most accurate response to "Hillbilly Elegy..." I do hope that someone, someday writes and publishes that book.  If you read "Appalachian Reckoning..." I would suggest that you read it with a jaundiced eye, scan every essay closely the truths you know about the Appalachia which you know, use your critical thinking skills to examine it, find what truths you can in it, but do not blindly accept it as the authoritative response to "Hillbilly Elegy...".