Hillbilly Elegy Full Chapter Book Summary

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This is a memoir written by James David Vance, who was born in Middletown (also known as the Steel City), Ohio, located within the Rust Belt. Vance came from a Scottish-Irish working-class community plagued by poverty and poor social mobility. While most members of the community had been stuck at the bottom of the social ladder for generations, Vance graduated from Yale Law School and managed to move up the social ladder. This book not only recounts his journey to success, but also highlights the crises faced by white working-class Americans and examines the causal factors behind these social issues.

Overview | Chapter 1

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

The book was written by J. D. Vance, who was born in Middletown, Ohio, within the Rust Belt. While he is white, he is not a member of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants—the first group to settle in the Northeastern United States. Vance is of Scottish-Irish descent, and his community consists of mostly non-college-educated, working-class individuals whose ancestors had been brought over to American South as day laborers. The subsequent generations had worked as sharecroppers, coal miners, and factory workers. They have been called “rednecks,” “white trash,” and “hillbillies” by other Americans, the last of which lends itself to the title of this book.

Vance was only thirty-one years old when he wrote this memoir. At the time, he had no notable achievements. He hadn’t been elected as senator or governor, nor had he started a company with a market value of one billion dollars or a non-profit organization that would change the world. In the first thirty-one years of his life, his biggest success was graduating from Yale Law School.

However, this memoir written by a “nobody” became a bestseller on Amazon and in The New York Times—even earning recommendations from influential Silicon Valley figures such as Bill Gates and Peter Thiel, author of Zero to One. Hillbilly Elegy was also adapted into a movie directed by renowned director Ron Howard, whose filmography includes A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code.

What makes this book so popular, then? There are two primary reasons. First, Vance’s story is inspirational. For someone born into a poor, chaotic family in an impoverished city, success is a strange. Many people who share the same background find themselves in the deep end. Against all odds, however, Vance managed to move up the social ladder and become a self-made businessman. The second reason is societal. Not only does this memoir detail Vance’s past, but it also reflects the living conditions of white blue-collar workers, offering insight into a real facet of American society. Through Vance’s perspective, readers can explore the challenges faced by the white American working class and learn the causes behind them. For this reason, many people regard Vance as the spokesman for white working-class Americans. Some critics even believe that this book, which articulates the mentality of said demographic, explains why Donald Trump was so well-liked among this demographic and how he came to win the 2016 election with their support.