Particularize Of Books Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Title | : | Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis |
Author | : | J.D. Vance |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 257 pages |
Published | : | June 28th 2016 by Harper |
Categories | : | Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Audiobook |
J.D. Vance
Hardcover | Pages: 257 pages Rating: 3.93 | 276189 Users | 26376 Reviews
Commentary Supposing Books Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working classHillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on 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 their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.
But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their 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.
Mention Books As Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Original Title: | Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis |
ISBN: | 0062300547 (ISBN13: 9780062300546) |
Edition Language: | English |
Setting: | Middletown, Ohio(United States) New Haven, Connecticut(United States) Jackson, Kentucky(United States) |
Literary Awards: | Audie Award for Nonfiction (2017), Ohioana Book Award for About Ohio or an Ohioan (2017), Kirkus Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (2016), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Memoir & Autobiography (2016) |
Rating Of Books Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Ratings: 3.93 From 276189 Users | 26376 ReviewsDiscuss Of Books Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Three month non-ranty political review time is ovvvvvvvvvvvvvvver. Woo Hoo!!! Loooooook out Beeoooootcheeees!I know you real Americans hate being called stupid, but you gotta meet me half way and stop being stupid.Bill MaherMy empathy level for stupid Americans has diminished this last year. I have un-friended a few people I once thought to be good, intelligent, and sane. This year has opened my eyes to an ugliness and a selfishness in people that I never imagined existed in so many. And thatHell hath no fury like a strong Protestant Work Ethic without work. Okay that was my original, but it should have been Vances! Instead, he mostly blamed the poor for being poor, lazy, and generally culpable for all (and few) choices. No wonder anger and angst filled their days and nights, and they needed drugs, alcohol, and violence to trigger some brief if dysfunctional relief. Vance was born right after the decades of American prosperity post WWII when if you wanted a job you simply got one.
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
Please sit down, Mr Vance. Well holler if we need you.
@chat I have found that the majority of men married to women of color are indeed, white nationalists. They hide behind their brown wives and say I can
When I bought this book I didn't really read the title closely so I really just assumed it said Hillbilly Energy and so I like assumed it was going to be something about solar energy on farms, I don't know I have a presumption problem clearly, so I was kind of confused when I started to read the book. I really did enjoy the book though and I felt Vance was insightful. The only thing is he seems to start to lose steam by the end of the book but ending books is always harder than beginning them.
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 its hard to get
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