Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

J D Vance is a hillbilly. He comes from a long line of hillbillies and although he grew up in Middletown, Ohio, his roots are in Kentucky "hollers" that are as close to Middletown as Route 23 can make them. He grew up as the son of a mother who has suffered from addiction most of her life, and his life - and that of his sister - were largely dependent on the love and care they received from their maternal grandparents. He was the first of his extended family to graduate from college, and then went on to earn a law degree from Yale University. He was also a Marine for four years of active service. Where did this hillbilly go right? And what can his success mean for others born and raised in a difficult atmosphere of drugs, fighting, and unemployment? You'll have to read his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis" to gain a perspective on what it's like to grow up white and disadvantaged. J.D. Vance wears the self-described Scots-Irish hillbilly title with both pride and defensiveness. Descended from a long line of Kentucky miners who eked out livings in the hollers of the state, his family was filled with prideful people quick to anger and quick to take offense at what others said. A quality of hot-headedness certainly makes decisions difficult to make and carry out. Many of these people saw economic advantages in the northern states and many settled in southern Ohio after WW2. But along with themselves, they carried the culture they grew up with in Kentucky. J.D.'s own family had a redeeming feature: the love and steadiness of his maternal grandparents, "Mamaw" and "Papaw". Although they were hot-headed people themselves, they had a deep love of their children and grandchildren that made them offer a sense of protection to J.D. and his older sister in the years when their mother was bouncing from husband to husband, drug to drug,city to city, bad decision to bad decision... He doesn't gloss over his own mistakes, either. Along with talking about his own successful lifting from his own background, he writes about how society can - possibly - help those who are trapped in the same society he was. Although Vance is only 32, he writes beautifully about himself...and the other "himselves" in society.