Draft:Hillbilly Elegy
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“”For at its core, his was a standard-issue conservative screed, riddled with the familiar contradictions. Vance acknowledged that jobs in Middletown were in short supply, but he ascribed the Appalachian predicament to a culture of “learned helplessness” and insisted that many of the city’s residents “choose not to work.” He claimed that “our eating and exercise habits seem designed to send us to an early grave” just pages after noting that fast food is the only fare available in many Appalachian towns. When the poor took out “high-interest credit cards and payday loans,” he faulted them for engaging in “irrational behavior” without sparing any scorn for predatory financial institutions. He even debated whether his mother was responsible for her addiction — and determined that no one’s circumstances give “him or her a perpetual moral get-out-of-jail-free card” — but made no mention of the pharmaceutical giants that deliberately flooded the region with painkillers.
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| —Becca Rothfeld[1] |
Hillbilly Elegy is a 2016 book by Republican politician J. D. Vance. It is his memoir about growing up poor in the Appalachia region of the Eastern United States. The book was widely reviewed. It was adapted into a poorly received film.
Further reading[edit]
- Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia (2017) Steven Stoll
- Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (2019, West Virginia University Press) ed. Anthony Harkins, Meredith McCarroll ISBN 978-1946684790
- What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte (2018, Belt Publishing) ISBN 978-0998904146
External links[edit]
- Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (2016, Harper) full ebook to borrow from ISBN 9780062300546
Reviews[edit]
- Review:Appalachian Reckoning: A region responds to Hillbilly Elegy Dwight Garner (NY Times, February 25 2019)
- Review: Thinking about reading 'Hillbilly Elegy'? Don't Piper Hansen (State Press, April 21 2020)
- 8 books you should read instead of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Lorraine Berry (LA Times, November 19, 2020)
- If Books Could Kill - Episode 10: Hillbilly Elegy podcast, Michael Hobbes; Peter Shamshiri (February 20, 2024)
References[edit]
- ↑ ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and J.D. Vance’s art of having it both ways: In his memoir and for some time after, Vance told liberals what they wanted to hear — but then he wanted power. by Becca Rothfeld (July 23, 2024 at 3:12 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.