J. D. Vance’s memoir belongs on a shelf with Senator Jim Webb’s Born Fighting as an intelligent and vivid exploration of Scots-Irish culture in the United States. That’s not a very long shelf, to be sure. The Scots-Irish aren’t ones for book-learnin’, much less book-writin’. Country singing and fighting, in uniform and otherwise, are more their style. Since the first proto-hillbillies came over from Ulster in the 18th century, their contributions to American preaching, generalship, and professional wrestling have outpaced their contributions to American letters. Which is surprising, since the Scots-Irish offer the would-be prose chronicler no shortage of colorful material.
Take Vance’s family, who might have been happier being less colorful. His mother is a drunk with five ex-husbands who, by the end of the book, has made the jump to heroin. Her mother, Mamaw, who more than anyone else raised young J.D., got pregnant at 13 back in the holler and once lit her own husband on fire. Papaw was a Vance, of the Kentucky Vances, who distinguished themselves in the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys — indeed, the Vance played by Tom Berenger in the 2012 miniseries earned himself the cognomen “Crazy Jim,” no mean feat in the context.
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