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  • Hillbilly Elegy

  • A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
  • Written by: J. D. Vance
  • Narrated by: J. D. Vance
  • Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (340 ratings)

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Hillbilly Elegy

Written by: J. D. Vance
Narrated by: J. D. Vance
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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.

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

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What listeners say about Hillbilly Elegy

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great social analysis wrapped in storytelling

This book offered an excellent social analysis about poverty and what it means to be upwardly Mobile in America. It gives a whole different picture than what you might expect on those in rural communities with the certain perspective of what is possible (and how people are thereafter limited) . #audible1

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Front Porch Conversation.

Delivered in a folksy manner, Vance is insightful without being preachy. A good performance helps to make , what could be, a complicated story easy to understand. I found that Vance's conclusions in the later chapters to be a brilliant summation of the lessons learned from his and his family's life experience. Timeless lessons about how love and one true believer can change the course of even the most challenging situations for a young person in search of their place in the world. Exceptional.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent story of US culture today

excellent story of the regional cultures in the USA. great background that gives context. not what I was expecting but I'm happy I listened

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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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    5 out of 5 stars
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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

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Sad and Beautiful

Fantastic book examining an ignored demographic. Sad, funny, and hopeful. Will read again and recommending

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Hillbilly Elligy - A work of the heart.

Read it if you want to understand the disadvantaged or Aces and how those who suffer early trauma can 'repair.'

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent story of overcoming odds.

Honest and heart warming. Relatable in many ways and eye opening in others. The world needs more men like the author.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Would no recommend

This book was OKAY but I would not recommend it to anyone I know. There were many conceited and racist parts. Towards the end it felt like a school essay, not a compelling autobiography

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