Hillbilly Elegy
A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
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4.4 • 2.5K Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist
"A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal
"Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.
A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Author J.D. Vance makes no attempt to sugarcoat the stark realities of poverty in both rural Appalachia—where his family hails from—and the Rust Belt town in Ohio where he grew up. Vance’s young life was grim, unstable, and often violent; he speaks frankly about his mother's opiate addiction and the reckless cast of characters that surrounded him. Vance sets aside the idea of structural poverty to explore the traditionally held beliefs (or "hillbilly culture”) that keep many rural and suburban whites from achievement and financial security. Whether or not you agree with his theories, you'll admire his blunt exploration of an often taboo topic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this compelling hybrid of memoir and sociological analysis, Vance digs deep into his upbringing in the hills of Jackson, Ky., and the suburban enclave of Middletown, Ohio. He chronicles with affection and raw candor the foibles, shortcomings, and virtues of his family and their own attempts to live their lives as working-class people in a middle-class world. Readers get to know his tough-as-nails grandmother, Mawmaw, who almost killed a man when she was 12 in Jackson, but who has to live among the sewing circles of Middletown. Her love for children, and for her grandson in particular, fuels her dream to become a children's attorney. When Vance finishes high school, he's not ready to head off to Ohio State, so Vance joins the Marines, completes a tour of duty in Iraq, and returns home with a surer sense of what he wants out of life and how to get it. He eventually enrolls in Yale Law School and becomes a successful lawyer, doggedly reflecting on the keys to his own success family and community and the ways they might help him understand the issues at stake in social policies today. Vance observes that hillbillies like himself are helped not by government policy but by community that empowers them and extended family who encourages them to take control of their own destinies. Vance's dynamic memoir takes a serious look at class.
Customer Reviews
Makes you think
I admit to reading this book in search of an explanation for WHY so many people are rabid Trump followers while I am definitely NOT a fan!
Eye opening! A viewpoint I had not considered even though I am also an escapee from a challenging childhood, in this case, as an Oklahoma Cherokee. Inspires me to brave a look back at my own history in search of lessons and understanding. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Hill Billy Elogy
Fantastic book! I couldn't put it down even though much of the story was painful! It was easy to read and kept my attention for several nights!!
A perspective that You'll never hear outside of Appalachia.
JD Vance gives a voice to the millions of people that it's ok to look down on. It shows how you can break the cycle of poverty. Great read!!!