Hillbilly Elegy - Sibi Books

Hardcover, 272 pages

English language

Published June 28, 2016 by Harper.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-230054-6
OCLC Number:: 952097610
ASIN:: 0062300547
Goodreads:: 217957585

(1 review)

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 …

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.

3 editions

robla@sfba.club reviewed Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance

Review of 'Hillbilly Elegy' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I was going to grudgingly give this book 4 stars, but I settled on 3 stars. Vance is a very good storyteller, and the audiobook was worth an Audible credit. I first learned about Hillbilly Elegy in the months prior to the 2016 election. The scathing review that [a:Sarah Smarsh|3314241|Sarah Smarsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1523224716p2/3314241.jpg] wrote convinced me to hold off: "Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans (The Guardian)". Her review convinced me that 1) I didn't need to read Hillbilly Elegy and 2) I wanted to read Smarsh's book if/when it came out (and it came out in 2018, and I really liked it).

My friends eventually convinced me to read it (or rather, listen to it). Vance is a more concise and organized storyteller than Smarsh, but Smarsh seems like a more trustworthy journalist. As many critics have pointed out about Vance, he seems …

I was going to grudgingly give this book 4 stars, but I settled on 3 stars. Vance is a very good storyteller, and the audiobook was worth an Audible credit. I first learned about Hillbilly Elegy in the months prior to the 2016 election. The scathing review that [a:Sarah Smarsh|3314241|Sarah Smarsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1523224716p2/3314241.jpg] wrote convinced me to hold off: "Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans (The Guardian)". Her review convinced me that 1) I didn't need to read Hillbilly Elegy and 2) I wanted to read Smarsh's book if/when it came out (and it came out in 2018, and I really liked it).

My friends eventually convinced me to read it (or rather, listen to it). Vance is a more concise and organized storyteller than Smarsh, but Smarsh seems like a more trustworthy journalist. As many critics have pointed out about Vance, he seems to conflate his parents' and his grandparents' upbringing with his own. He characterizes Middletown, Ohio as a small town in Ohio, and not a key component of the "Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area" as it's called by the U.S. Census bureau.

If you're a real political junkie (like I am), this is an important book to read. This book was incredibly influential in the the U.S. presidential election of 2016, and could end up being as important in the 2020 election. I found Vance's upbringing relatable, and like Vance, I also have a soft spot for Cracker Barrel, even though chicken fried steak is horribly unhealthy food. But Vance propagates some dangerous generalizations about "hillbillies" that don't apply to everyone from Kentucky (or other rural areas), so be sure to take everything he says with a big grain of salt, and don't take what he writes as anything more than one guy's perspective. And also note: J.D. Vance told the Washington Post in December 2016 that he was considering running for office.

Those of you that aren't political junkies: just wait for Ron Howard's film adaptation. It should be coming out on Netflix this year.

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