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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This was like reading a report through observation. I found it disappointing.
Great interesting book.
This book told it exactly as it is in Appalachia. Very interesting
I enjoyed this book immensely.
Interesting book which offer insight into the dreams, hopes and failures of the hill people. Definitely worth the read.
I found the depiction of impoverished Appalachia fascinating and heartfelt.
Read this for book club and I am so glad. This is a unique book. A real life story that gave me a glimpse into another world that is right around the corner (when we are talking about the whole world.) So sad and yet so wonderful to read about someone that is in horrible circumstances and pulls himself up to another level. Gives so much information from someone living a different life and I love that he calls out his own community while still letting us know that these are his people and he loves them.
Good on the front end, but he’s full of excuses and draws the flawed conclusions from his personal experience. Heartening in his rendition of some of the challenges; worse than useless in his proposed analysis & solutions.
If you want to know why the 2016 election resulted the way it did read this book! The forgotten men and women of the country heard a voice that included them.
A very well written book that outlines specifically what opioid addiction did to rural American lives.
A little bit boring.
This is a true story of the Rust Belt and how one young man made it out of there.
Good, just not as good as the hype over it. Maybe because I have lived in many similar areas of the country and the information being presented was not an eye opener to me.
Did not live up to its ratings in my opinion.
The author, J. D. Vance, seems to blame everyone but the people in his family and community for their bad choices in relationships, the way they treat each other, and addictive behaviors. Own your lives.
Nothing like hearing from folks who have lived in such circumstances and were able to “escape”. Sad to be reminded that a culture needs to change to make it possible for conditions to improve.
Story of our time. Reality bites.
I read Hillbilly Elegy a couple of years ago. Then I listened to it again last year during a car trip with my mother. Admittedly, I had looked over that title several times at Barnes and Nobles before finally giving in to curiosity. Was I really interested in a Hillbilly story? As it turned out, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I just finished another book which delves into that culture –All the Pretty Things by Edie Wadsworth. Both of these stories fascinated and even resonated with me. While I didn’t exactly grow up in Hillbilly territory, I did grow in Kirkman, Iowa where there was plenty of boozing and blue collar mischief. There was even a murder. Beyond my Kirkman upbringing, I’d periodically venture to my grandmother’s trailer in Missouri a few times.
In Elegy, Vance tells his story of his childhood which vacillated between Kentucky’s Appalachia and the factory town of Middletown, Ohio. Because of his mother’s addiction problems and a revolving door of father figures, J.D.’s life was no fairy tale. His grandparents were the only constant in his life – and not that they didn’t have a few issues of their own. While there are heartbreaking stories of neglect, abuse, and addictions, J.D. is quick to recognize the love that surrounded him. Hillbilly clans might kick each other’s teeth in, but they’re fiercely loyal to each other.
J.D. Vance becomes his own hero by escaping his circumstances and becoming the first in his family to graduate from college and eventually Yale law school. But that’s not the end of the story. J.D. has demons to cope with. I believe the purpose of this book isn’t only to help explain the socio-economics of rural, white America, but to expose the impact of ACE’s, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. Children who grow in highly stressful situations are much more likely to experience depression and suffer from nervous breakdowns. Developing healthy relationships can be devastatingly challenges.
This memoir seamlessly integrates demographical and economic statistics of depressed locales like the Rust Belt. Vance is clever in his story-telling. One moment, you’re saddened by a poverty statistic. Then, your heart is racing because of a terrifying experience he had with his mother. Then, you’re giggling because of something his grandmother said to him. Or, he’s learning how things work in the world of the upper crust. I laughed out loud when he retells the story of ordering a sparkling water at a swanky recruiting function:
“I took one sip and literally spit it out. It was the grossest thing I’d ever tasted. I remember once getting a Diet Coke at a Subway without realizing that the fountain machine didn’t have enough Diet Coke syrup. That’s exactly what this fancy place’s “sparkling” water tasted like. “Something’s wrong with that water,” I protested. The waitress apologized and told me she’d get me another Pellegrino. That was when I realized that “sparkling” water meant “carbonated” water. I was mortified, but luckily only one other person noticed what had happened, and she was a classmate.”
I just heard it’s been picked up by Netflix. Can’t wait to see the adaptation.
Eye opening
Helps outsiders understand the nature of hillbilly (Scoth-Irish) culture and its values. In the modern American economy, some of the qualities which have enabled these hardy folks to survive for centuries have blocked their ability to escape poverty. My wife taught kids with these cultural values for years and Vance enabled her to better understand and equip them in ways that helped them move on.