In “Digging in the Trash,” Appalachian novelist David Joy writes,
The other day I was watching a BBC interview about poverty in Baltimore. One of the people being interviewed said something that really struck me. He looked into the camera deadpan and beaten and he said, “Desperation is a way of living.” When he said that, I couldn’t help but think, maybe it’s not just gentleness that’s a resource of the privileged. Maybe hope is a resource of the privileged, and maybe that’s what people don’t get about the kids I grew up with, about the characters I write about in my novels.
I get asked all the time why my characters aren’t hopeful. What I say again and again is this: It’s hard to be hopeful when you’re worried about your next meal, when the only thought to ever cross your mind is how you’re going to make it through the day.
How is Joy’s understanding of what concerns and motivates poor people — particularly his Appalachian neighbors — different from that of J.D. Vance?
March 3, 2019 at 7:32 pm
Joy, a novelist from the Appalachian region, utilizes his position as a writer to convey the truth about the people from his hometown. Through his stories, he is able to introduce nonfiction into his work in an attempt to accurately paint the people from Appalachia. In this article, he addresses the hopelessness that readers see in his characters. In response he says, “I get asked all the time why my characters aren’t hopeful. What I say again and again is this: It’s hard to be hopeful when you’re worried about your next meal, when the only thought to ever cross your mind is how you’re going to make it through the day” (Joy). Instead of focusing on the pessimistic attitude of people in the Appalachian region – like Vance does – Joy writes about full scope of “raw emotion” and harsh realities people in his hometown encounter. When a New York Times article referred to his book as “bleakly beautiful” and “[a] pitiless novel about a region blessed by nature but reduced to desolation and despair,” Joy was perplexed. Instead of solely focusing on the despair or bleakness, Joy wants readers to see the raw emotion and humanity in his hometown. Similarly, to the discussion of hope, he wants his readers to understand that addiction is not easy to escape. Rather it is in this state without hope. He says, “When all you’ve got is a twenty-dollar bill, twenty dollars doesn’t ward off eviction notices. Twenty dollars doesn’t get you health insurance. Twenty dollars doesn’t make a car payment. Twenty dollars doesn’t even keep the lights on. But twenty dollars can take you right out of this world for just a little while. Just a minute…” (Joy). This quote effectively demonstrates the sense of hopelessness that drives people to addiction. Joy wants people to know that people from Appalachia cannot always escape the way Vance did.
Vance looks at the pessimism in his hometown and “learned helplessness” – when a person believes that the choices they make have no effect on the outcomes of their life (Vance). Vance asserts that his hard work and ability to see that his hard work paid off is what helped him “escape” his hometown. In a way, Vance puts down his peers who failed to rise above their hometown while Joy offers a more sympathetic view explaining why someone may not have the hope to leave.