Through the stories told in the two novels Evicted and Hillbilly Elegy, the reader is introduced to the struggles that the poor people of America face. Whether these problems are economic, familial or anything else, poor Americans experience life differently than others. Even if someone is able to “escape” their poverty ridden lives, they are forever impacted. These novels by Matthew Desmond and J.D. Vance, problems of society because of poverty are addressed and show the world what needs to be worked on, and by using just two of the stories of people written in the pages, a glimpse of these struggles is represented. Subsequently, the economic struggles that the people in Milwaukee in Evicted and J.D.’s family in Hillbilly Elegy face led to many struggles, including eviction. Many of the families in Evicted relied on food stamps, welfare, and government aid to survive, but “welfare stipends in Milwaukee and almost everywhere else have not been budgeted, even as housing costs have soared” (Desmond, 58). One of the people Evicted discusses is Arleen Beale and her two sons that lived with her,…show more content… Vance throughout Hillbilly Elegy dealt with a multitude of familial conflicts and love that have sprouted from generations of poverty and Hillbillys. His main conflicts were with his mom. There was a cycle to J.D.’s mom Bev, referred to as Mom throughout, she would seem normal and then her behavior would grow increasingly erratic, then came the partying with drugs and alcohol, and then the apologies that were always empty ones because she would soon be back to her erratic ways (75). One time when J.D. was about twelve, he was in the car J.D. said something to his mother that pissed her off so much that she threatened to crash the car and kill them both, but ended up pulling the car over to “beat the shit” out of J.D. so he used that chance to escape. Thankfully the owner of a nearby house was willing to help him and called the cops and Mamaw (Vance,
