380 pages
English language
Published Jan. 2, 2018 by Thorndike Press.
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.
This book was a great explanatory read describing why people change how they think. It was a little too much on the "feel sorry for these people, which makes it OK for them to look at their world as a zero-sum game" for my tastes.
Having grown up outside of DC, reading this book was very eye-opening for me. I enjoyed learning about the demographic of white-working class in rural Appalachia, but, Vance's personal narrative was the most powerful and engaging aspect of the book for me.
A few things about this book bugged me, but it seemed overall fine.
But then I figured out he was really conservative, and I went back and re-read the parts I didn't like. The whole situation became clear. So much of it is about blaming poor people for being poor. Not a fan.
Touching and informative autobiography that gives an interesting insight into the lives of the white working class in the States.
