Hillbilly Elegy

A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

By: J. D. Vance

Narrated by: J. D. Vance

Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner, 2017 APA Audie Awards - Nonfiction

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 class.

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 40 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, his aunt, his uncle, his 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.

©2016 J. D. Vance (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Heart warming and heart wrenching

If you know the people or places JD Vance is talking about, this book will have you laughing and crying at the same time. If you don't know these people or places you will by the end. His personal narration makes it even better.

BRAVO, J.D. Vance

As a veteran of the social work profession and a native Ohioan, I've not read anything even remotely closer to the reality of the white working poor in America as what Vance manages to honestly and brutally conveys in Hillbilly Elegy. Respectfully, often reverently the intention is shamelessly pick through his own family's ruins in the context of his own new normal. I found myself shouting "YES, exactly that, YES!" more times that I could count throughout his narrative. The moments that I physically responded by outbursts of hysterical laughter, the "church head nod", and clapping were usually in response to the so-real-I-could -almost-smell-her-in-the-room doctrine of Mamaw. Here's your front row seat in class, America, pun very much intended. Take your time and let this one marinate for the next four years while the Trump administration gets good and comfortable. It's going to take a while to right this ship.

Wonderful life story close to home

This is a wonderful life story close to home not in its poverty or abuse but in its people. I laughed and cried with Papaw and Mamaw and empathized with J. D.'s account. This is a very entertaining and compelling memoir, one of the best I have read. It deserves all of its accolades.

Important book about the American we don't hear about often

Vance's life story is critical for anyone interested in the complexity of poverty, class, education, and childhood in America. It's a story rarely told and a community rarely discussed when we talk about the challenges Americans face.

the first Audible book I will listen to over again

Very gripping story of a poor child in a disadvantaged and dysfunctional home. His upward mobility against all odds is a miracle. The statistics are jaw dropping in all of his research showing the listener the rise and fall of the American working class . A great book.

Eloquently Written and Read

This is not an anthropological review of "Hillybilly" culture, this is a coming of age story from a wickedly-bright and insightful young man whose open eyes and heart enabled him to thrive in the rest of the world while not turning his back on his family, his childhood, or his people.

Personally, this was a gift because it gave me compassionate insight into the ways in which people who are not like me think, live, and survive.

Interesting story

Struggled the first half yet found the second half interesting. Glad I stayed with it.

Painfully familiar

i'm from Kentucky and kept having epiphanies, then looking around to share them with someone.

Memoir with a larger view

This memoir goes beyond a personal or family history; it illuminates social and political issues affecting millions of Americans (ultimately all Americans).

The story J.D. Vance tells is a timely one. It adds an important perspective to the discussion of our society in today's world.

The book is well written and easy to read. (And pretty short.)

As for the narration, it is nice to hear the author read his own story. However, he is not a professional narrator and while J.D.'s voice is fine, it did not enhance the story. I was a bit disappointed that when he quoted someone--himself or others--from his past, J.D. didn't alter his voice to speak with the dialect/accent he grew up with (he mentions this, but never lets us hear what that sounded like).

Southern woman agrees

As a women who grew up in the south I can relate to the author's experiences. This book should be required reading for our politicians, government employees, and decision makers.