Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. Why this book? / Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll

Part I. Considering Hillbilly Elegy. Interrogating. Hillbilly elitism / T. R. C. Hutton -- Social capital / Jeff Mann -- Once upon a time in "Trumpalachia": Hillbilly Elegy, personal choice, and the blame game / Dwight B. Billings -- Stereotypes on the syllabus: exploring Hillbilly Elegy's use as an instructional text at colleges and universities / Elizabeth Catte -- Benham, Kentucky, coal miner / Wise County, Virginia, landscape / Theresa Burriss -- Panning for gold: A reflection of life from Appalachia / Ricardo Nazario y Col©đn -- Will the real hillbilly please stand up? Urban Appalachian migration and culture seen through the lens of Hillbilly Elegy / Roger Guy -- What Hillbilly Elegy reveals about race in twenty-first-century America / Lisa R. Pruitt -- Prisons are not innovation / Lou Murrey -- Down and out in Middletown and Jackson: drugs, dependency, and decline in J. D. Vance's Capitalist Realism / Travis Linnemann and Corina Medley. Responding. Keep your "elegy": the Appalachia I know is very much alive / Ivy Brashear -- HE said/SHE said / Crystal Good -- The hillbilly miracle and the fall / Michael E. Maloney -- Elegies / Dana Wildsmith -- In defense of J. D. Vance / Kelli Hansel Haywood -- It's crazy around here, I don't know what to do about It, and I'm just a kid / Allen Johnson -- "Falling in love," Balsam Bald, the Blue Ridge Parkway, 1982 / Danielle Dulken -- Black hillbillies have no time for elegies / William H. Turner

Part II. Beyond Hillbilly Elegy. Nothing familiar / Jesse Graves -- History / Jesse Graves -- Tether and plow / Jesse Graves -- On and on: Appalachian accent and academic power / Meredith McCarroll -- Olivia's ninth birthday party / Rebecca Kiger -- Kentucky, coming and going / Kirstin L. Squint -- Resistance, or our most worthy habits / Richard Hague -- Notes on a mountain man / Jeremy B. Jones -- These stories sustain me: the wyrd-ness of my Appalachia / Edward Karshner -- Watch children / Luke Travis -- The mower-1933 / Robert Morgan -- Consolidate and salvage / Chelsea Jack -- How Appalachian I am / Robert Gipe -- Aunt Rita along the King Coal Highway, Mingo County, West Virginia / Roger May -- Holler / Keith S. Wilson -- Loving to fool with things / Rachel Wise -- Antebellum cookbook / Kelly Norman Ellis -- How to make cornbread, or thoughts on being an Appalachian from Pennsylvania who calls Virginia home but now lives in Georgia / Jim Minick -- Tonglen for my Mother / Linda Parsons -- Olivia at the intersection / Meg Wilson -- Appalachian apophenia, or the psychogeography of home / Jodie Childers -- Canary dirge / Dale Marie Prenatt -- Poet, priest, and "poor white trash" / Elizabeth Hadaway