THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO“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 TimesHillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of … 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, sister, 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.
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Everyone should read this!
Should be required reading in this era of Trump and Company. Gives context to how in the hell we ended up with a buffoon in the White House.
Interesting perspective on attitudes of people in USA post-manufacturing towns.
Very inciteful into how some poor folks in this country live. A great eye-opening read!
Great book! Enlightening!
Very interesting perspective!
Just couldn’t get “grabbed” by the writing style.
JD ‘s story is personal, but also one of a culture that our middle class does not want to recognize.
very interesting and informative memoir about growing up in the Hillbilly country.
I grew up with folks who moved into my area of Ohio from the hills down south and I have no fondness of anything there having moved away many years ago to attend college. Seems as though this is a recollection of the way things used to be and with nothing improved after the migration north and all boats were lowered with the tide in economic terms. An elegy is a mournful word and act for the dead and this nails it beautifully.
Well written and an informative book
This is a very timely, relevant book, as it deals with the struggles of working class families in the Kentucky and Ohio areas of the Rust Belt. The author tells of his compromised childhood, and how the odds are against his succeeding beyond a high school diploma.
This non fiction book reads like a novel, and is part social commentary, sociological study, and memoir.
This is a well-paced story, written by a man who rose above his traumatic childhood to realize the American Dream. Recommend for all readers.
I alternately cried, cringed, and laughed through this memoir/sociological study. I identified with so much of the author’s background, some through personal experience and most through community observance. Working in a rural school system, I see firsthand the sometimes overwhelming obstacles these kids face. I recommend this book to all, but especially to my fellow hillbillies.
Sadly, I think there are a lot of Americans in this situation and many more to come. The haves and have nots and those who did not know they were have nots.
Speaks to the epidemic of drugs, under education and what your fortunes may be depending on where you were born and raised. An epic tale of dysfunctional families.
A very truthful look at transplanted hillbillies from the Kentucky hills to what has become the Rust Belt. It was uncompromising with a detailed look at what is wrong with that part of society. Along with the bad, it also talks about the strengths from that same family structure. However, the weaknesses tend to outweigh the strengths especially with drugs and alcohol. It did not talk a lot about the current heroin problem in Ohio and the pill situation in Southeastern Kentucky. It came out last summer so it should have had more information about the ODs and the living zombies that now populate this area.
This was a good read. The author described coming from a dysfunctional family to having a functional adult life. While the author contends that his experience is an example of those in the “hillbilly” culture. I would caution generalizing his experience to the whole sub-culture.
Thought provoking
An interesting read since I live very close to the part of Ohio of which the book is written.
This book was insightful for our service projects to the Appalachia Mountains.
a story of a dysfunctional family