tags: JD Vance, memoir
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
From Goodreads
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive 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 disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported 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 one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility.
But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his 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.
I had no idea this memoir was written by JD Vance. I borrowed it from our library as soon as he was chosen by President Trump. I finished the book in one day. I did not have a rough childhood to identify with his but the narrative is so riveting and heartbreaking for a child to experience so much trauma and to end up a winner in life. He wrote the book not to have a pity party but to tell his readers that nothing is impossible if someone thinks positively and perseveres, and has the good luck of having loving and supportive family - grandparents. an older sister, aunt and uncle.
His childhood was unbelievably chaotic with his mother being an alcoholic and addicted to drugs and men. His mother married 3 times and had many boyfriends after he was born that he had a hard time having a male father figure to look up to because of the revolving door of men. His grandparents therefore became his guide to life, specially his grandmother whom he calls Mamaw. She was a larger than life character, as if she came out of a fiction writer's book. She was fierce, argumentative and prone to physical fights, but was loving and loyal to his family specially his 2 older grandchildren.
JD's father was his mom's second husband. They divorced and the father gave him up for adoption to the third husband. JD as a small child changed his name from James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel, the surname of his stepfather and his mom's third husband but unfortunately also divorced and left his mother, never to be seen again. To avoid having to explain why he has the surname of the man who is not his biological father but is not present in his life, he changed his surname to the one constant surname, his grandfather and mother's surname, Vance. Poor kid. He officilaly changed his surname to Vance in 2013 to honor his grandparents.
He didn't get good grades in Elementary nor in High School but he was determined to go to college. He was encouraged by his sister or aunt, if I remember correctly, to sign up for the marines where he spent 4 years. He enrolled at Ohio State University for his undergraduate degree. He worked hard to get the degree faster because as a 24 year old freshman, he felt he was much much older than his classmates. He worked 2 jobs while in school and even spent sometime in the hospital for overworking himself. He graduated Summa Cum Laude then applied to Yale. He didn't have any help from anyone but was accepted. At Yale, he was encouraged by his freshman professor, Amy Chua, to write this memoir. [Amy Chua is the famous or maybe infamous author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.]
He never mentioned politics nor his political leanings although he briefly mentioned that his Mamaw was a Democrat and only voted Republican just once in her life, for Ronald Reagan.
Highly Recommended. Keep an open mind and don't insert politics because there is none in this memoir although he cited Clinton and Obama, positively.
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I have heard of Senator Vance when he was endorsed by President Trump. JD Vance didn't like candidate Trump in 2016 and he voted for another candidate. Yes, he was a NeverTrumper and said negative things about President Trump because he didn't know him and he was probably convinced by the lying main stream media about President Trump. He obviously changed his mind after 2 years of President Trump in office when he saw the economy growing, fairer trading with other nations, increased employment and wealth for minority citizens (not illegal invaders) specially Blacks and Hispanics, tough in dealing with foreign nations sucking on USA teats, negotiateddiplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, and NO WARS throughout his 4 years in office.
When President Trump chose him to be his vice presidential candidate, conservatives who didn't know much about Vance were divided. We either like or don't like Vance. After reading the book, I am on the LIKE list. He is a genuine person who loves his country.
