Hillbilly Elegy
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For the film based on the memoir, see Hillbilly Elegy (film).
Hillbilly Elegy
Author JD Vance
Language English
Subject Rural sociology, poverty, family drama
Published June 2016 (Harper Press)
Publisher Harper
Pages 264
Awards 2017 Audie Award for Nonfiction
ISBN 978-0-06-230054-6
OCLC 952097610
LC Class HD8073.V37
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by JD Vance about the Appalachian values of his Kentucky family and the socioeconomic problems of his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents moved when they were young.
It was adapted into the 2020 film Hillbilly Elegy, directed by Ron Howard and starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams. The film received mixed reviews.[1]
Summary[edit]
Vance describes his upbringing and family background while growing up in Middletown, Ohio. He writes about a family history of poverty and manual labor jobs, and compares this life with his perspective after leaving it.
Though Vance was born and raised in Middletown, his mother and her family were from Breathitt County, Kentucky. Their Appalachian culture include traits such as loyalty and love of country despite family violence and verbal abuse. He recounts his grandparents' alcoholism as well as his unstable mother's history of drug addictions and failed relationships. Vance's grandparents reconciled and became his guardians. His strict but loving grandmother pushed him and Vance was able to leave Middletown for undergraduate studies at Ohio State and post-graduate studies at Yale Law School.[2]
Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions about the responsibility of his family and local people for their misfortunes. Vance cites hillbilly culture and its encouragement of social disintegration, along with the economic insecurity of Appalachia. Vance's arguments rely on personal experience, such as when he worked as a grocery store cashier he watched welfare recipients talking on cell phones, whereas the working Vance could not afford one.[2]
His antipathy of those who seemed to profit from poor behavior while he struggled, especially combined with his values of personal responsibility and tough love, is presented as a rationale for Appalachia's political swing from a strong Democratic bias to a strong Republican affiliation. Likewise, he tells stories highlighting the lack of work ethic of the local people, including the story of a man who quit his job after expressing dislike over his work hours, as well as a co-worker with a pregnant girlfriend who would simply skip work unexcused.[2]
Publication[edit]
In July 2016, the book was popularized by an interview with the author published by The American Conservative.[3] The volume of requests briefly disabled the website. Halfway through August, The New York Times wrote that the title had remained in the top ten Amazon bestsellers since the interview's publication.[2]
Vance credits his Yale contract law professor Amy Chua as the "authorial godmother" of the book, who persuaded him to write the memoir.[4]
Reception[edit]
The book reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list in August 2016[5] and January 2017.[6]
American Conservative contributor and blogger Rod Dreher expressed admiration for Hillbilly Elegy, saying that Vance "draws conclusions... that may be hard for some people to take. But Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has been extremely hard won."[7] The following month, Dreher posted about his theories about why liberals loved the book.[8] New York Post columnist and editor of Commentary John Podhoretz described the book as among the year's most provocative.[9]
The book was positively received by conservatives such as National Review columnist Mona Charen[10] and National Review editor and Slate columnist Reihan Salam.[11] By contrast, other journalists criticized Vance for generalizing too much from his personal upbringing in suburban Ohio.[12][13][14][15] Jared Yates Sexton of Salon criticized Vance for his "damaging rhetoric" and for endorsing policies used to "gut the poor". He argues that Vance "totally discounts the role racism played in the white working class's opposition to President Obama."[16] Sarah Jones of The New Republic mocked Vance as "the false prophet of Blue America," dismissing him as "a flawed guide to this world" and the book as little more than "a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class."[13]
Historian Bob Hutton wrote in Jacobin that Vance's argument relied on circular logic and eugenics, ignored existing scholarship on Appalachian poverty, and was "primarily a work of self-congratulation."[12] Sarah Smarsh with The Guardian noted that "most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia" and called into question Vance's generalizations about the white working class from his personal upbringing.[14]
The New York Times wrote that Vance's confrontation of a social taboo is admirable, regardless of whether the reader agrees with his conclusions. The newspaper writes that Vance's subject is despair, and his argument is more generous in that it blames fatalism and learned helplessness rather than indolence.[2]
A 2017 Brookings Institution report noted that "J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy became a national bestseller for its raw, emotional portrait of growing up in and eventually out of a poor rural community riddled by drug addiction and instability." Vance's account anecdotally confirmed the report's conclusion that family stability is essential to upward mobility.[17]
The book provoked a response in the form of an anthology, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll. The essays in the volume criticize Vance for making broad generalizations and reproducing myths about poverty.[15]
A key reason for Hillbilly Elegy's widespread popularity following its publication in 2016 was its role in explaining Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican Party.[18] In particular, it purported to explain why white, working-class voters became attracted to Trump as a political leader.[19] Vance himself offered commentary on how his book provides perspective on why a voter from the "hillbilly" demographic would support Trump.[20]
Although he does not mention Trump in the book, Vance openly criticized the now-former president while discussing his memoir in interviews following its release.[21] Vance walked these comments back when he joined the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Ohio, and now openly endorses Trump.[22][23] In July 2024, Vance was picked by Trump to be his running mate on the Republican ticket for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.[24] After the announcement, sales of the book and viewership for the film on Netflix increased dramatically.[25]
In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung in July 2023, German chancellor Olaf Scholz called the book "a very touching personal story of how a young man with poor starting conditions makes his way." Scholz said the book had moved him to tears, but that he found the positions Vance later took to be "tragic."[26]
Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: Hillbilly Elegy (film)
A film adaptation was released in select theaters in the United States on November 11, 2020, then digitally on Netflix on November 24. It was directed by Ron Howard and stars Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Gabriel Basso[27][28] and Haley Bennett. Although a few days of filming were done in the book's setting of Middletown, Ohio,[29] much of the filming in the summer of 2019 was in Atlanta, Clayton and Macon, Georgia, using the code name "IVAN."[30][31]
References[edit]
^ Howard, Ron (November 24, 2020), Hillbilly Elegy (Drama), Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Imagine Entertainment, Netflix, retrieved July 15, 2024
^ Jump up to:a b c d e Senior, Jennifer (August 10, 2016). "Review: In 'Hillbilly Elegy,' a Tough Love Analysis of the Poor Who Back Trump". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
^ Dreher, Rod (July 22, 2016). "Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People". The American Conservative. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
^ Heller, Karen (February 6, 2017). "'Hillbilly Elegy' made J.D. Vance the voice of the Rust Belt. But does he want that job?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
^ Barro, Josh (August 22, 2016). "The new memoir 'Hillbilly Elegy' highlights the core social-policy question of our time". Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 13, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
^ "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Books – Best Sellers – January 22, 2017". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
^ Dreher, Rod (July 11, 2016). "Hillbilly America: Do White Lives Matter?". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
^ Dreher, Rod (August 5, 2016). "Why Liberals Love 'Hillbilly Elegy'". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on October 12, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
^ Podhoretz, John (October 16, 2016). "The Truly Forgotten Republican Voter". Commentary. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
^ "Hillbilly Elegy: J.D. Vance's New Book Reveals Much about Trump & America". National Review. July 28, 2016. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
^ Salan, Reihan [@Reihan] (April 30, 2016). "Very excited for @JDVance1. HILLBILLY ELEGY is excellent, and it'll be published in late June" (Tweet). Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017 – via Twitter.
^ Jump up to:a b "Hillbilly Elitism". Jacobin. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
^ Jump up to:a b Jones, Sarah (November 17, 2016). "J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America". The New Republic. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
^ Jump up to:a b Smarsh, Sarah (October 13, 2016). "Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
^ Jump up to:a b Garner, Dwight (February 25, 2019). "'Hillbilly Elegy' Had Strong Opinions About Appalachians. Now, Appalachians Return the Favor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
^ Jared Yates Sexton (March 11, 2017). "Hillbilly sellout: The politics of J. D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' are already being used to gut the working poor". Salon. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
^ Krause, Eleanor; Reeves, Richard V. (September 2017). "Rural Dreams: Upward Mobility in America's Countryside" (PDF). Brookings Institution. pp. 12–13. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 6, 2020.
^ McClurg, Jocelyn (August 17, 2016). "Best-selling 'Hillbilly Elegy' helps explain Trump's appeal". USA Today. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ "The Lives of Poor White People". The New Yorker. September 12, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ "J.D. Vance on 'Hillbilly Elegy' and Translating for Trump Supporters". Vogue. February 8, 2017. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ "'Hillbilly Elegy' Recalls A Childhood Where Poverty Was 'The Family Tradition'". NPR. August 17, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ Gabriel, Trip (August 8, 2021). "J.D. Vance Converted to Trumpism. Will Ohio Republicans Buy It?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ van Zuylen-Wood, Simon (January 4, 2022). "The radicalization of J.D. Vance". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
^ Steinhauser, Paul; Gillespie, Brandon (July 15, 2024). "Trump announces Ohio Sen JD Vance as his 2024 running mate". Fox News. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
^ Aguirre, Kimberley (July 17, 2024). "J.D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' streams skyrocket by 1,180%; book tops Amazon bestsellers list, sees spike in library borrows". LA Times. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
^ "Germany's Scholz found book written by Trump's VP pick 'touching'". Yahoo News. July 16, 2024. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
^ Williams, Trey (April 12, 2019). "Ron Howard-Directed 'Hillbilly Elegy' Casts Gabriel Basso in Lead Role". TheWrap. Archived from the original on May 13, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
^ WKRC (April 16, 2019). "'Hillbilly Elegy' expected to be filmed locally; more cast members sign on". Local 12/WKRC-TV. Archived from the original on April 17, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
^ Kiesewetter, John (June 3, 2019). "Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Visit Middletown For 'Hillbilly Elegy' Meeting". WVXU Cincinnati Public Radio. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019.
^ Walljasper, Matt (June 27, 2019). "What's filming in Atlanta now? Lovecraft Country, The Conjuring 3, Waldo, Hillbilly Elegy, and more". Atlanta Magazine. Archived from the original on June 28, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
^ Chandler, Tom (July 3, 2019). "Netflix to begin filming movie 'Ivan' in Macon". The Georgia Sun. Archived from the original on July 5, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
30. William Allan Kritsonis, PhD - Founding Editor-in-Chief, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS (Since 1982), Houston, Texas
External links[edit]Official website
C-SPAN Q&A interview with Vance on Hillbilly Elegy, October 23, 2016
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Hardcover – 28 June 2016
by J. D. Vance (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 95,265 ratings
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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.
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272 pages
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What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.
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Review
"[A] compassionate, discerning sociological analysis...Combining thoughtful inquiry with firsthand experience, Mr. Vance has inadvertently provided a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election, and he's done so in a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans. Imagine that." -- Jennifer Senior, New York Times
"[Hillbilly Elegy] is a beautiful memoir but it is equally a work of cultural criticism about white working-class America....[Vance] offers a compelling explanation for why it's so hard for someone who grew up the way he did to make it...a riveting book." -- Wall Street Journal
"[Vance's] description of the culture he grew up in is essential reading for this moment in history." -- David Brooks, New York Times
"[Hillbilly Elegy] couldn't have been better timed...a harrowing portrait of much that has gone wrong in America over the past two generations...an honest look at the dysfunction that afflicts too many working-class Americans." -- National Review
"[A]n American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It's one of the best books I've ever read... [T]he most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what's happening now without first reading J.D. Vance." -- Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
"J.D. Vance's memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy", offers a starkly honest look at what that shattering of faith feels like for a family who lived through it. You will not read a more important book about America this year." -- The Economist
"[A] frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir...a superb book..." -- New York Post
"The troubles of the working poor are well known to policymakers, but Vance offers an insider's view of the problem." -- Christianity Today
"Vance movingly recounts the travails of his family." -- Washington Post
"What explains the appeal of Donald Trump? Many pundits have tried to answer this question and fallen short. But J.D. Vance nails it...stunning...intimate..." -- Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"[A] new memoir that should be read far and wide." -- Institute of Family Studies
"[An] understated, engaging debut...An unusually timely and deeply affecting view of a social class whose health and economic problems are making headlines in this election year." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Both heartbreaking and heartwarming, this memoir is akin to investigative journalism. ... A quick and engaging read, this book is well suited to anyone interested in a study of modern America, as Vance's assertions about Appalachia are far more reaching." -- Library Journal
"Vance compellingly describes the terrible toll that alcoholism, drug abuse, and an unrelenting code of honor took on his family, neither excusing the behavior nor condemning it...The portrait that emerges is a complex one...Unerringly forthright, remarkably insightful, and refreshingly focused, Hillbilly Elegy is the cry of a community in crisis." -- Booklist
To understand the rage and disaffection of America's working-class whites, look to Greater Appalachia. In HILLBILLY ELEGY, J.D. Vance confronts us with the economic and spiritual travails of this forgotten corner of our country. Here we find women and men who dearly love their country, yet who feel powerless as their way of life is devastated. Never before have I read a memoir so powerful, and so necessary. -- Reihan Salam, executive editor, National Review
"A beautifully and powerfully written memoir about the author's journey from a troubled, addiction-torn Appalachian family to Yale Law School, Hillbilly Elegy is shocking, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and hysterically funny. It's also a profoundly important book, one that opens a window on a part of America usually hidden from view and offers genuine hope in the form of hard-hitting honesty. Hillbilly Elegy announces the arrival of a gifted and utterly original new writer and should be required reading for everyone who cares about what's really happening in America." -- Amy Chua, New York Times bestselling author of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
"Elites tend to see our social crisis in terms of 'stagnation' or 'inequality.' J. D. Vance writes powerfully about the real people who are kept out of sight by academic abstractions." -- Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, investor, and author of Zero to One
From the Back Cover
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.
The Vance family story began with hope 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.
About the Author
J. D. Vance grew up in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, and the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and served in Iraq. A graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he was elected to the United States Senate representing Ohio in 2022. In 2024, he became the Republican nominee for Vice President. Vance lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his family.
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Product details
ASIN : 0062300547
Publisher : HarperCollins (28 June 2016)
Language : English
Hardcover : 272 pages
===
From Australia
debbie
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent thoughtful bookReviewed in Australia on 17 July 2024
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This book is very clearly written and easy to read.
I would recommend it to everyone who cares to learn more about how other people live, and how to help others.
I read this in one sitting.
It's very compelling and at times makes you want to cry for little JD and his life of instability.
Thank you.
This well written book helped me understand how people's childhoods affect them. And what we can do to help children succeed.
God bless you JD
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars What makes some people so resilient and others not?Reviewed in Australia on 4 May 2017
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An interesting book giving an insight to Vance's underprivileged life in a white community in the Appalachian mountains area. He feels trapped, his parents provide limited help, but his grandmother provides support that enables Vance to eventually works out a way of finding fulfilment in a highly educated part of America. Fascinating to see him achieve a life that 'works' for him and I often wonder how some people have or develop resilience whilst others don't.
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars ... bit rambling (often a problem with memoirs) - some useful insights about this part of US societyReviewed in Australia on 13 February 2018
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OK - a bit rambling (often a problem with memoirs) - some useful insights about this part of US society.
2 people found this helpful
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Summit
5.0 out of 5 stars A WinnerReviewed in Australia on 22 July 2024
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I had to read this book after Vance was on the ticket with Trump what a wonderful story of life the most honest thing it is real Vance had put his story warts and all that shows he will run the USA the same way. I look forward to the coming years with Vance and Trump cleaning up the mess America is in today.
A wonderful story and a must read
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Marie Ritchie
4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the plight when education is not a must when money is scarce and one persons way out.Reviewed in Australia on 6 June 2017
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Well worth reading. Gives a great insight into the poorer Americans their standards, morals, priorities and loyalties. Humorous and sad well written congratulations to Vance.
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NicShef❤️Reading
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read...Reviewed in Australia on 28 July 2017
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The outcome of the election made me want to better understand how Donald Trump was able to appeal to middle America. After reading this book, I get it. This former marine and Yale Law School graduate provides a probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class through the author’s own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. This is an especially fascinating book and a must read. It gives us a peek into the 21st century lives of some stubborn, fearless folks in Eastern Kentucky who do not assimilate well into the larger society. It really helped me after the election of Trump to better understand why so many workers no longer identified with the Democratic Party and how desperate they were to find an alternative political option. The author provides examples and quantifiable, sociological analysis on how extensive the gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow in the US.
The fact is J.D. Vance has written a revealing book about his childhood life in the hillbilly subculture of impoverished Eastern Kentucky and parts of southern Ohio. One of his goals is to describe for the reader why the people of Eastern Kentucky have not been able to break out of poverty, why generation after generation of children in this subculture follow the behavioral patterns set by their parents and neighbours when these patterns of behaviour have not greatly improved the education of their people nor their economic condition in the larger society.
The moving memoir has its share of humour and introduces us to a number of vividly colourful figures. It is the story of how upward mobility really feels as well as being an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for an ever growing segment of the country.
It is very obvious after reading it why 'Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis' by J.D. Vance has been on the NY Times Best Seller List for over a year now. This touching, revealing, warm, sad, and inspiring memoir, opens many sores while explaining in the most human and personal terms possible the pain and misunderstanding that harms working class and poor white Americans in the heartlands.
Throughout, Vance painstaking honesty and courage are never in doubt. Ultimately, Vance fully understands the necessity for a compassionate government and individual acceptance of responsibility working together to make progress possible for all. I found it so fascinating I've bought the hardback when it was originally released and have now bought the kindle edition to store and reference back to. A must read.
9 people found this helpful
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John Stackhouse
4.0 out of 5 stars Part answer to the American conundrumReviewed in Australia on 19 May 2017
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From where I live in Sydney, America is an unfathomable mess. I have frequently visited the US, admired it greately, lived for a couple of years as a guest of the US Army as a correspondent in Korea. But so far only bumped into the edges of its failures : color, a non-functioning political structure, health costs, guns , Christianity gone feral and insane public discussion. I'm not boasting when I claim we do all these things better. If you banned politicians from setting electoral boundaries, for instance (we do this with an independent commission) and of course ordered
Compulsory attendance at polling stations. Not voting, note. You can write anything on your ballot paper but even if it's just a ribald comment. But our pollies take note of the "informal vote". When these ethics form part of your life view, a Trump event can't be understood. '"Hillbilly Elegy" helps us understand, if not appreciate. I was glued to my Kindle as the story unfolded. At the begining of the last century , political leaders were attracted to the newly forged Australian federal policy model. It's a pity they couldn't embrace it. Vance's frank and compelling testament shows we were on the right track.
4 people found this helpful
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"davidreimers"
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent readingReviewed in Australia on 4 September 2022
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Vance’s writing style is both eloquent and meaningful. This is an excellent autobiographical account of life in a world that many of us wouldn’t otherwise be aware of. It’s a story of family loyalty, respect and hope, but also despair and concern. J.D. Vance will one day make a great leader, so this is a book to read in order to understand the man far better than relying on op-eds.
2 people found this helpful
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Eddie Ozols
5.0 out of 5 stars The lost people of USAReviewed in Australia on 1 April 2018
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A fascinating read by a hillbilly from the Appalachian Mountains who recalls his childhood and the values u dergirxing a culture which though poor was proud.
Retracing his life and the disadvantages of a single mother with addiction problems and multiple husbands and boyfriends, He analyses the supports which avoided him following I her footsteps.
Good fortune through loving grandparents and the Marines enabled him to rise above his upbringing and attend an Ivy League university, meet a patient woman and become a successful lawyer.
Analysing the changing socio economic trends in his communities which saw employment disappear and once proud communities neglected by their political party, this provides an insight into Trumps ascendancy.
Excellent reading from so many perspectives.
One person found this helpful
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B. Michel
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye openingReviewed in Australia on 30 September 2018
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I started by reading Paul Theroux's 'Deep South' and was discussing it with some friends when an eavesdropper popped her head in and suggested that I read 'Hillbilly Elegy'. Both books were stupendous, both discussing that insular deep south without prejudice, wide-eyed and clarity. This one, Hillbilly Elegy was a deeply personal story of growing up in a very different lifestyle than 'typical' USA. Especially in that this was not taking place in the traditional deep south where we anticipate hillbillies to evolve from but from coal mining mountains of Ohio, Indiana with a shaker of Kentucky tossed in. My eyes were opened. It felt more like 1920s America and that's the way it is. Great book.
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Jessica J.
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November 29, 2020
I read this book as an advance galley, long before it became a Thing and I did not read this book because I wanted Vance to explain Trump, though he's somehow been chosen by liberal media as the person to do just that (though the handful of interviews I saw seemed more like Chris Matthews wanted to pat himself on the back for having a guest with hillbilly cred than actually listening to what Vance had to say). I didn't think this book would have mass appeal because no one outside of Appalachia seems to give a shit about Appalachia, and its success has surprised me. It's not a perfect book, but I do think it's an okay starting point as long as you remember that this is just one guy's perspective on his own experiences.
I picked this up because Vance is from the same part of the world as me and I wanted to read about something that I could relate to. That cover photo looks like it could have been taken on the road that I grew up on, in one of the poorest places in Ohio where Appalachia and the Midwest intersect. It was so poor that a girl who made me cry in first grade was featured on a CBS news story on American Poverty.
I always knew it was different from the cities and suburbia reflected in pop culture, but moving away and realizing just how different it is from other places was still a weird experience for me. It’s so rural that I struggle to describe it adequately to the people I’ve met since living in Philadelphia and the DC Metro area. It matches stereotypes to some extent, but the stereotypes also often miss the mark. People not from Appalachia really don’t get it, and they’re often way too quick to dismiss it. I never really fit in in Appalachia, for so many different reasons, but I’ll also fiercely defend it. Put me in a room of East-Coast natives making jokes about “uneducated rednecks” and I will probably grow a second head. Poor rural white people are the last group that you can make fun of without being considered un-PC, and I think that’s a huge problem that creates a lot of divisiveness. Books like this one show a culture that is underrepresented.
Vance grew up in a small town between Cincinnati and Dayton. His family experienced many of the same migration patterns, cultural touchstones, and poverty-related struggles that describe the lives of my extended family and the families of my high-school peers. His father was never a consistent presence in his life, his mother struggled with drug addiction. His grandparents were the greatest source of normalcy in his life, but they taught him to live by a hillbilly code of loyalty and self-sufficiency. Though they encouraged him to take his education seriously, wanted a better life for him than they’d had, he didn’t do well in school and didn’t seems to think he’d ever have a future outside of Appalachia.
But then he joined the Marines and it turned his life around. With a new sense of self-determination, a broader perspective of the larger world, and developed leadership skills, Vance enrolled at Ohio State University and, eventually, went on to Yale Law School—an unheard of achievement for someone from his family, his hometown, and his struggling public high school. A lot of the experiences he had in New Haven frustrated him, and that was definitely something I could relate to. However, I think those experiences caused Vance to dig into his conservative values in a way that I can not relate to.
There's been some sociocultural analysis of Appalachia, but I don't think anything's ever focused so specifically on Appalachia Ohio. I'm also unaware of any exploration of the region that's actually been done by a native and therefore possesses an insider understanding of what makes the people tick. There really are a lot of very specific personality traits that are unique to the people who settled in the Ohio River Valley, and these traits make no sense to outsiders. When people talk about how ridiculous it is that West Virginia tends to vote Republican even though it seems to be against their interests, they are fundamentally misunderstanding a lot of these traits that are so ingrained in the psychology of the state and that frustrates me to no end.
Vance focuses primarily on his own personal story. He does cite some research about the region in general—but this is mostly for context and is not meant to be exhaustive. I think it’s important to remember that Vance is conservative, though he doesn’t seem to be as far right-wing as the Tea Party, so his ideas may not appeal to the point of view of many liberals coming to this book trying to make sense of Trump. By giving this book three stars, that’s not to say I necessarily agree with his political point of view but I think it’s important to hear different voices and his I'd certainly one that I recognize from my time in Southeastern Ohio.
Vance makes an attempt to extrapolate from his own experience to explain why social welfare is not enough to help address the problems of Appalachia. The short answer is: there are no easy solutions, because so many of the problems are circular. People don't succeed because they don't see anything to be hopeful about, and they don't see any room for hope because so few have succeeded. Without hope, no one bothers to take baby steps towards the kind of changes that can move the region into a better economic reality. I think some people see that as blaming the poor for being poor but I do think there are some things that need to be changed from inside the house (I just think those things are different than Vance).
I do wish I'd come away from this book feeling a little more optimistic, that it offered up some more concrete solutions, but I suppose that wasn't really Vance's stated purpose. And it's not really something that falls squarely on his shoulders. He's still young—just 31, he likely only finished Yale two years before this book was written, if I've done the math correctly. Regardless, I do think it's important to listen to the voices of Appalachia. Change is never going to happen until we all start listening to each other and not just applying our own prejudices to each other's words.
arc-digital biography-memoir nonfiction
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Rebecca Robinson
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August 4, 2016
I'll be honest I didn't totally finish the book before giving up. I hear Vance on NPR and the story caught my attention. Yet, what I thought would be a better analysis of American economics and poverty proved to be very different.
It's one of those conservative love stories of " I got my shit together so everyone can". While I respect the struggle Vance had, I also believe it's a very naive picture of what is going on. It explains why people FEEL a way. It does not explain the systemic issues that are also at play.
Skip it if you want anything profound.
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Lauren Cecile
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February 11, 2017
Very candid account of growing up disadvantaged and white. The parallels between his demographic and a historically, systematically marginalized Black America are evident. Both populations deserve understanding and empathy, but I tend to think the author thinks his people are somehow more noble. I would have like to seen an acknowledgment that the two groups should not be antagonistic but work together to achieve mutually beneficial economic goals.
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Jon
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August 15, 2016
2016 is the year of Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy should be at the top of every politico and thought leader's reading list living in the Acela corridor. Vance is both an excellent writer and a thoughtful person—and when combined with a compelling story, he's able to shed some light on the lives of those living on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains.
Let's start with what this book isn't. It's not an explanation of why Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, or at least not directly. Nor is it a guide for how to alleviate Appalachian poverty. Vance is too smart to offer simplistic explanations or solutions. Rather, it is one man's experience living in the culture of Appalachia and placing his experience in the broader context of American society. It is the fact that he doesn't try to do too much that makes this book as compelling as it is.
Vance grew up in southeastern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, largely raised by his grandmother (Mamaw) and having a complicated relationship with his family members. Hillbilly Elegy is a story that demonstrates the full measure of the brokenness that wracks Appalachia, but it is also a story that exemplifies the depths of familial love and opportunity.
Vance's description of Yale Law School is interesting, because while he portrays it as an institution in which he feels out of place (very few people from poor backgrounds go to Yale Law School), he also was afforded the opportunity to go there. That tension—the fact that he managed to "beat the odds" while still acknowledging the deep cultural divide between elite institutions and wide swaths of middle America (the region of the United States sometimes derisively referred to as "flyover country")—pervades the book and ultimately makes it such an important book.
For that tension exists not merely in the people like Vance who have a foot in both worlds—one in southeastern Ohio with his hillbilly family and the other in downtown San Francisco working for an investment fund. It also exists in the United States writ large, as college-educated urbanites express confusion at the values of those outside of their spheres. There are, therefore, two Americas—one divided less by race or geography (though those certainly matter), but by class and values. In order to break down those barriers, we need books like Hillbilly Elegy and people like Vance to help us build bridges across those cultural barriers we have today.
memoirs
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Jessaka
952 reviews190 followers
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July 28, 2022
HILLBILLY ELEGIST: YOUR BOOK SMELLS BAD ENOUGH TO KNOCKA BUZZARD OFF A SHIT WAGON
Ma lives in the holler
way back yander thar.
she plays the fiddle and sings
just like Emmy Lou.
Mamaw chews tobacco
and spits the wad right
in her old Styrofoam cup.
even in front of company.
my pa was a coal miner
and beats us younguns
cus he meaner than a polecat
and a little touched
when he is drunker
than Cootey Brown.
We refused welfare
don't believe in eating
high on the hog,
so I picked my poor self up
and so can y'all.
just go out and git a job
cus it is y'alls falt
if y'all ain't a workin'
And if you read this far
I got your attention
so I want to say that
this here writer feller
plumb needs some more book larnin,
and a whole lotta more empathy.
He makes me fit to be tied;
I am madder than a wet hornet.
cus getting anywhere in life
takes luck and opportunity.
and that means it has to
come up and bite you
in the butt.
it isn't always their fault
if they are down and out,
but now you have written
a book for republicans
to use against your kinfolk.
written by Jessica Slade, 2017
non-fiction politics
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Lark Benobi
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May 22, 2022
The first problem I had with this book is the author is a bonehead. On page 8 he tells us “I have known many welfare queens; some were neighbors, and all were white.”
I have no idea what I’m supposed to make of that statement. Or actually yes I do know but even so I try to look away. Because of course “welfare queen” is a derogatory term used by people of means to deride the poor, and of course it’s most commonly used to demean and dehumanize urban black poor women, but an author bragging that he knows white “welfare queens” doesn’t really get to the core problem of using a derogatory term to describe poor women, does it? I guess he thinks himself enlightened for declaring that poor people of all colors are equally lazy and undeserving. The entire book is based on the premise that the poor are poor because they are lazy and bitter.
The second problem I had with this supposed memoir is it has all the depth and compassion of a Three Stooges episode. It’s an endless string of anecdotes that involve outrageous behavior, destruction of property, and/or grave bodily harm. Take for instance a time when someone douses another someone with gasoline and sets that someone on fire. Don’t worry! No one was seriously hurt! It’s okay to laugh! Or if anyone was hurt, they deserved it! Also don’t forget that hillbilly folk actually like to hurt one another, because we’re all kind of stupid and lazy! Except me, because I went to Yale and made something of myself, just like anyone can, if they have grit and spitfire!
Ok. That's about it.
2018 male-identified-authors
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Bill Kerwin
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November 27, 2019
Have you ever wondered what became of the Scotch-Irish, who dug America’s coal, forged America’s steel and built America’s automobiles, who worked for the American Dream Monday through Friday. prayed to The Good Lord on Sunday, and revered F.D.R. and J.F.K. every day of the week? The last thing I heard, they elected Donald Trump. And I am still looking for explanations.
If you want somebody who knows Appalachian culture from inside to explain it all to you, I highly recommend Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. Vance has his roots in Eastern Kentucky, a troubled childhood in the rustbelt city of Middletown, Ohio, and yet has succeeded in graduating from Ohio State and matriculating from The Yale Law School. He tells us about his family of “crazy hillbillies,” and, in the process of telling us the story of his family, he tells us the story of America too.
The hillbilly seeking the American Dream in industrial Ohio was always “a stranger in a strange land”, for he cleaved to his Appalachian identity—the church in the wildwood, the old folks in the hollers—and returned to the welcoming hills every chance he could get. But economic decline left its mark on both mountain culture and urban manufacturing. Opportunities shrunk, hard liquor was supplemented by painkillers and heroin, church attendance fell and so did belief in the American Dream.
J.D.’s were most powerful influences were his grandparents Mamaw and Papaw: fierce, hard-drinking battlers with a proud belief in individual honor and family solidarity. They might beat their kids, sure, only when they deserved it...but no outsider better say one harsh word to them, much less lay a finger on them. They probably did their own children little good—especially J.D.’s mother, addicted to heroin and a bewildering succession of men—but by the time J.D. needed them they had mellowed a little, and gave him the love and determination he needed to succeed.
The early chapters about family are compelling, but the last few chapters, touching on the cultural hurdles a hillbilly in a high class East Coast law school must overcome, are fascinating too. J.D. shows us how many things the upper middle class takes for granted—how to dress for an interview, how to schmooze a prospective employer, how to strive for what you really want not what you’re supposed to want—are difficult for a young man from a poor background.
J.D. Vance’s insights are noteworthy not only because of his family background but also because of his political philosophy. He is a conservative, one of those cautious, reflective conservatives who are growing increasingly rare these days. (Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is one of his heroes, David Frum is a former employer and mentor). He is critical of specific government practices (the high barriers grandparent’s face if they wish to be foster parents, for example), but he also realizes that government has a role—although limited—in raising the Appalachian people from poverty. The major responsibility, however, he puts squarely on the shoulders on the hillbilly himself:
There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.
Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers...What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.
autobiography memoir
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reading is my hustle
1,558 reviews322 followers
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February 13, 2023
Update, 02/06/23
A Tale of Moral Degeneration:
...People talk about hard work all the time in places like Middletown. You can walk through a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than twenty hours a week and find not a single person aware of his own laziness.
Why is this guy the darling of the talk show circuit right now? He thinks his fellow hillbillies just need to work harder. Problem solved! He thinks because he made it everyone else should be able to do the same. He asserts social programs won't help his lazy people but then is short on solutions.
...There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.
True- so when he is asked in interviews and by the media about Trump's appeal he needs to be more honest. He indicates that it is because Trump is a political outsider & not part of the political elite, speaks to their issues, & sounds like one of them. He doesn't talk about the racism & xenophobia that is much a part of his people. That is also part of Trump's appeal & needs to be included in his narrative.
history-or-politics memoirs-biographies
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Miranda Reads
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December 10, 2020
This books had so much more depth than I expected and honestly, I am more than a little overwhelmed.
What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives.J.D. Vance, an ex-marine, a Yale law school graduate and self-proclaimed hillbilly, provides an absolutely unique, heart-wrenching and poignant analysis of his culture - the poor white working class.
If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all?J.D. Vance's family originated from the Appalachia region in Kentucky but he spent most of his childhood in Ohio. And while he felt the all-consuming love from his grandparents, he also suffered through a tumultuous childhood, unstable mother and unending poverty.
Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.And yet, he managed to pull himself out of the dregs and live a relatively normal life. So, what made him unique? What events occurred to ensure that his life was different? What kept him from being a statistic?
I don't know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.This book was enthralling - I was thoroughly hooked from start to finish. Definitely one to check out!
Audiobook Comments
Read by the author! I always love it when that happens. And J.D. Vance was a superb reader - an absolute delight to listen to!
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Matthew
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October 27, 2017
This is an incredibly fascinating and well done book. I think that the thoughts and opinions of the author might be controversial, but he lived through it and saw the good and the bad so I will give him the benefit of the doubt on how he sees things after the way he grew up!
When I saw the name, I figured this would be reading about a real life Deliverance-esque town. However, this is more about how a boy develops into a man when dealing with being raised by a family with a “Hillbilly” background. The setting is suburban Ohio where many Hillbillies have relocated for blue collar jobs. In fact, the town is Middletown, Ohio, which is not far from where I was growing up at the same time that the events of this book were taking place (Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati). Because of this, it hit home even more for me.
When I say that his opinions might come across as controversial, it is because he gives his opinions about his upbringing and the Hillbilly culture and how he had to struggle to overcome it. Some of what he says might get people riled up if it came from an outsider. But, again, since he lived with it – I feel like his input and opinion are a very important viewpoint.
I did a little background search on this book and the author online. It sounds like there are some people who scoff at this book because it isn’t about a Deliverance-esque town, the author is well spoken, and he does not necessarily paint the Hillbilly culture in the best light. I agree that all these things are true about the book, but I think that is what makes it even more fascinating and amazing to me. When you read this, you will probably be surprised that he made it away from abuse, drug use, poverty, and crime at all. Is he supposed to feel bad about that? I think that some people think that he should; kind of like he turned his back on his roots
If a thought provoking book about growing up in lower middle class suburbia over the past 30-40 years sounds interesting to you, this is your book. I can easily recommend this book to anyone who loves a good memoir.
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