Audiobook Review - Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy:  A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

​​by J.D. Vance

​​release date 6/28/2016

​​Audio time:  6 hours 49 minutes

​​2 out of 5 stars

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​​According to the publisher, “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.

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​​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 forty 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.

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​​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.

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​​But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, 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.

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​​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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​​This is the first audiobook I’ve ever reviewed…it’s also the first one I’ve ever listened to, so I want to give a disclaimer that I in no way consider myself an expert on this, but I’m going to do my best for you!

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​​I’ll start with the narration (the audio portion, if you will):  this book is read by the author himself. Given that this is a memoir, I think it’s the most logical choice to use the author.  That being said, I didn’t find him to be the best reader.  There were quite a few dramatic and emotional passages, but the author tended to keep the same monotone style going, regardless of what content he was reading.  As a listener, this made it difficult to keep from getting bored, and to really stick with the story.

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​​As the summary implies, this book is a memoir of one man, but on a bigger scale, it tells the story of multiple generations within a family, and even attempts to personify a whole region and subculture of the United States.  This aspect of the book is what caused my low-ish rating.  In Vance’s attempt to ‘take back’ the term Hillbilly, he (in my opinion) used the term too broadly to describe the people who come from a similar background.  While I can’t speak for the experience of people who live in Appalachia and the Rust Belt, I imagine there are plenty of people there who would not wish to be grouped in with Vance’s experiences of violence and substance abuse.  I appreciate the attempt at re-appropriation, but it made me feel uncomfortable to be asked to classify all people in this area as uneducated drunks, which is what it felt like Vance was alluding to throughout.

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​​Clearly the title of this book is meant to be provocative, and it is.  Whether you agree with Vance’s perspective or identify with his experience, you are thinking about this area of America that does not typically get much attention in main stream media.  In my opinion, any time you are asked to broaden your horizons, something valuable happens.  I admit that, before this book, I really did not have much knowledge about Appalachia, nor did I spend time thinking about how different their experience is from mine.  I grew up in a healthy, loving home, and had nearly unlimited access to education, so I can’t imagine how difficult Vance’s life must have been.  I really do commend him on rising above his circumstances and achieving such great things.  It truly cannot have been easy for him.

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​​While I didn’t love this book, it definitely was thought provoking.  If you enjoy books about political or social commentary, this book will definitely be of interest to you.

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