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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Paperback – 16 November 2020
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Waterstones Nonfiction Book of the Month (June)
‘THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR’ Sunday Times
‘You will not read a more important book about America this year’ Economist
‘A memoir of life in the Trump-voting white working class is the political book of the year’ Sunday Times
‘Hillbilly 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 post-war 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 humour and vividly colourful 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.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperCollins GB
- Publication date16 November 2020
- Dimensions12.9 x 1.7 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-100008410968
- ISBN-13978-0008410964
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Product description
Review
‘Brilliant … offers an acute insight into the reasons voters have put their trust in Trump’ Observer
‘Powerful and highly readable account of the light of the poor white Americans in Kentucky’, Books of the Year, Financial Times
‘Essential reading for all yankophiles, politicians and anyone interested in how Donald Trump won over the rust belt to arrive at the White House’, Books of the Year, Sunday Times
‘The memoir gripping America … Vividly articulates the despair and disillusionment of blue-collar America’ Sunday Times
‘A tough-edged elegy for ‘white trash’ hillbilly America’ David Aaronovitch, The Times
‘America’s political system and the white working class have lost faith in each other. ‘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’ Economist
‘Vance’s description of the culture he grew up in is essential reading for this moment in history’ David Brooks, New York Times
‘Clear-eyed and nuanced, a powerful antidote to the clamour of news’ The Times
‘With exquisite timing Vance’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ offers something profound at this time of political populism … a great insight into Trump and Brexit’ Ian Birrell, Independent
‘I bought this to try to better understand Trump’s appeal to those white working-class people who feel left behind, but the memoir is so much more than that … It’s an important social history/commentary but also a gripping, unputdownable page-turner’ India Knight, Evening Standard
‘A painfully honest account of America’s white underclass by a brilliant young man’ George Osborne, New Statesman
‘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
Book Description
The International Bestselling Memoir Coming Soon as a Netflix Major Motion Picture starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : HarperCollins GB (16 November 2020)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0008410968
- ISBN-13 : 978-0008410964
- Dimensions : 12.9 x 1.7 x 19.8 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 127,821 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 268 in Sociology of Class
- 500 in Political Economy
- 543 in 21st Century History
- Customer Reviews:
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 the Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he has contributed to the National Review and is a principal at a leading Silicon Valley investment firm. Vance lives in San Francisco with his wife and two dogs.
Customer reviews
Top reviews from Australia
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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.
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.
Getting out is hard and forgiving yourself for doing so even harder.
It is depressing, however as the story unfolds it is cheering what he achieves. Triumph over extreme adversity. The final sting is that the demons of memory may never clear.
Top reviews from other countries

Mr. Vance likes to cite sociological and demographic statistics to back up his personal narrative. But, why? Isn't one's subjective experience enough? This work will never be considered anything more than anecdotal, so why try? This is not the sort of personal narrative one finds in something like Knausgaard's "My Struggle," which, fiction or not, makes you feel like you've known the man all your life and could sit down and have a beer with him without feeling the least bit awkward. On the contrary, Vance's yarn is presented in something like the third person, a stance I don't understand. As a result, the prose is dry and choppy. I found myself slogging through just to get through. As an effort at self-awareness in the Socratic tradition (Know thyself), I'd give this work a D. One never feels like the author is revealing himself, at least not with the brutal honesty of Knausgaard. Instead, it reads like a Hallmark card of correct sentimentality. This is not an age of political correctness: it's an age of sentimental correctness; and, Vance assures us with Hallmark card certainty that his sentiments are correct. He adores his sister and Mamaw and Papaw. He's a devout family man with the best of intentions. He goes to church and believes in Jesus. He's a conservative who doubts the ability of government to make effective change. Fine and dandy. But I wouldn't want to sit next to this guy on an airplane. I think the conversation would always get steered to himself. He finished Ohio State in two years, with honors. And then went to Yale and became editor of the "prestigious" Yale Law Review. And to ice the cake, he served as a Marine in Iraq. I mean, this dude's a physical and mental mensch. Man is the measure of all things, said Protagoras. And Vance is the measure of all men.
I think Mr. Vance might be posturing himself for a shot at political office.
Anyway, read it if you like. But this ain't no Steinbeck.

The book wasn't quite what I expected and I was delighted. I expected a more formal study but I got a very personal account of being raised in white, working class America and making it good.
As the start of the book I was full of questions and many of them were answered as JD's story progressed.
Most of the book is very personal but I found the most fascinating parts when he discusses the view, within America, of the white working class and the disadvantages that they deal with. There is a lot of pondering in the narrative that could be reduced at times but, to my delight, little use of academic theories.
This book will be very interesting for many people to read.

Both the reviews I have read and praise found on the cover of the book itself tell potential readers that this book is key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's election and the Brexit result, but the text offered no clues of the sort. Certainly, it is an interesting insight into what it's like growing up in white, working-class poverty. It goes a fair way to explaining the 'what' of the situation, but not the 'why' or 'how.'
The overarching message is that people who lack familial stability, or role models who are 'like them' but 'better' (for example Barack Obama is quintessentially not one of these people) will continue the cycle of poverty, and there are few things that government and policy can do to change it. Change must come from within, but how?
Few answers can be found in the book, unfortunately.

