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Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance- anyone read it?
Posted on 5/23/17 at 11:57 am
Posted on 5/23/17 at 11:57 am
Anyone read this one yet? It's next on my list.
Description:
Description:
quote:
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.
Posted on 5/23/17 at 3:38 pm to foreverLSU
Yes it was good, would have been more intersting if he followed the politics a bit more.
Posted on 5/23/17 at 5:01 pm to foreverLSU
I haven't yet, it's on my list. He's gotten shite all across the political spectrum for his representation, which makes me even more intrigued.
Posted on 5/23/17 at 6:24 pm to foreverLSU
I read it, mainly because of all the hype. It was a decent read.
If you want to read something similar but much better (IMO), try The Unwinding by George Packer. Great book.
If you want to read something similar but much better (IMO), try The Unwinding by George Packer. Great book.
This post was edited on 5/23/17 at 6:27 pm
Posted on 5/24/17 at 3:02 pm to foreverLSU
It's a decent book, but he always feels like a tourist in his own book. There's a sense that he enjoys showing off a freak show to gain credibility with his new city friends, if that makes sense.
I thought the Glass Castle hit a lot of the same themes but in a much more emotionally effecting way. It seemed to lack the emotional distance and finger pointing.
I thought the Glass Castle hit a lot of the same themes but in a much more emotionally effecting way. It seemed to lack the emotional distance and finger pointing.
Posted on 5/25/17 at 9:51 am to Baloo
I agree with the previous two posters. I think he correctly diagnoses an issue when he says folks in Appalachia won't leave, or those that do leave are looked upon as "traitors" to their families, but I think he takes just a bit too much satisfaction is being away from the "hillbillies", thus proving the natives' hypothesis...
Posted on 5/26/17 at 7:46 am to foreverLSU
It dragged at the beginning, but his story got more interesting the more I read.
It is a quick read.
It is a quick read.
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