Hillbilly Elegy

Vance movingly recounts the travails of his family. --Washington Post [A]n American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It's one of the best books I've ever read... [T]he most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what's happening now without first reading J.D. Vance.--Rod Dreher, The American Conservative J.D. Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy , offers a starkly honest look at what that shattering of faith feels like for a family who lived through it. You will not read a more important book about America this year. --The Economist [Hillbilly Elegy] couldn't have been better timed...a harrowing portrait of much that has gone wrong in America over the past two generations...an honest look at the dysfunction that afflicts too many working-class Americans. --National Review [Hillbilly Elegy] is a beautiful memoir but it is equally a work of cultural criticism about white working-class America....[Vance] offers a compelling explanation for why it's so hard for someone who grew up the way he did to make it...a riveting book. --Wall Street Journal The troubles of the working poor are well known to policymakers, but Vance offers an insider's view of the problem. --Christianity Today [A] compassionate, discerning sociological analysis...Combining thoughtful inquiry with firsthand experience, Mr. Vance has inadvertently provided a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election, and he's done so in a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans. Imagine that. --Jennifer Senior, New York Times [A] frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir...a superb book... --New York Post [Vance's] description of the culture he grew up in is essential reading for this moment in history. --David Brooks, New York Times What explains the appeal of Donald Trump? Many pundits have tried to answer this question and fallen short. But J.D. Vance nails it...stunning...intimate... --Globe and Mail (Toronto)