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Hillbilly Elegy
- A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
- Narrated by: J. D. Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
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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.
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What listeners say about Hillbilly Elegy
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- Paleo hound
- 2018-08-22
Totally worth the buy - great read.
The author gives an excellent explanation of the differences between hillbillies and everyone else. Well done!
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- jason spencer
- 2022-12-10
Hillbilly Outsiders
this book is incredible. what an amazing story. 10/10. JD Vance leads a fascinating life.
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- Angi LT
- 2020-12-19
Deep, moving, heartbreaking and very transferable to other cultural pockets around the world.
I have lived in different countries, different cultures with similar pockets of people to the one JD Vance masterfully describes. My mother and sister as teachers and me as a physician worked inside the core of some of them. We understood that we could not change the culture however, we could with empathy and respect help providing a "route map" and a hand up...
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1 person found this helpful
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- dirk
- 2018-09-13
Profoundly candid look at a systemic problem!
The Authour captures an all to common problem in a number of todays societies accross a number of cultures. I enjoyed considering how the mantality described in his story has contributed to todays political, social world climate. Great story! #Audible1
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- Simon G.
- 2019-05-16
good book
good book, but the conclusion on how to fix the hillbilly region is kinda lacking. What is proposed is not very tangible.
thank you for making this book possible
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- YYC AME
- 2020-12-25
Better than expected
A great read from a point of view I didn’t know I didn’t know about.
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- Barb Murphy
- 2020-11-09
Plain, Hard Truth
The honest and plain hard truth of JD's life and those who influenced it. Although JD broke through the odds and became a well educated man , this inspirational part of his life isn't the main theme for the story. The main theme is the love, kinship, and growing understanding of where he came from, and how it has influenced who he is today. Perhaps those of us who have not experienced such a past have been able to gain some insight by hearing JD's story.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Megings
- 2020-12-04
It truly deserves its best-selling status.
If you want to better understanding of hillbilly culture, both the good and bad, this is your book. It's stark, honest, compassionate, and realistic about the struggles faced by many towns and families in America. I actually related to the author much more than I expected too. It's binge-worthy, great story, well written, important topic.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Aidan Morrison
- 2020-12-10
Thanks for this 💕
This was such a moving story. What a sincere and loving depiction of perfectly flawed human beings. This was an emotional ride and I'm glad I got a glimpse of a very smart, articulate person's unique perspective. Also your voice oddly enough seems very similar to Cory from the New World Witchery podcast haha.
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- Doron Eisen
- 2019-12-11
Repetitive
Book was interesting at first but after 1/3 of the way through it became extremely repetitive and quite conceited. Very few enlightening moments after you get the gist of the first few chapters. Overrated!
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