In a 2017 piece for Salon, writer and historian Elizabeth Catte wrote: "Every generation of politicians, writers, analysts, academics and economists believes it has discovered something unique or horrible or paradoxical about Appalachia."
Indeed, especially since 2016, it seems, and the release of now Republican senator J. D. Vance's popular — and also critiqued — book, Hillbilly Elegy, there has been an odd smugness among people who've never set foot in the region casually analyzing and diagnosing it like armchair therapists. Thankfully, there are also those pushing back against oversimplified narratives.
