Hillbilly Elegy

"Hillbilly Elegy" er blevet kåret som en af de bedste faglitterære bøger i 2016 og er ved at blive filmatiseret. J.D. Vance tegner et personligt og råt portræt af den hvide amerikanske arbejderklasse. Bogen viser hvordan denne gruppe af mennesker, der tidligere har været fejret i den amerikanske tidsånd, er faldet fra hinanden de sidste 40 år. Beretningen starter efter slutningen af anden verdenskrig, da Vances bedsteforældre flytter til Ohio, i håbet om at finde arbejde. Selvom "Hillbilly Elegy" kunne ses som beviset på, at den amerikanske drøm er mulig, så løftes sløret på alle de usagte dele af Vances familiehistorie, alkoholismen, fattigdommen og traumerne.

"Hillbilly Elegy" er blevet kåret som en af de bedste faglitterære bøger i 2016 og er ved at blive filmatiseret. J.D. Vance tegner et personligt og råt portræt af den hvide amerikanske arbejderklasse. Bogen viser hvordan denne gruppe af mennesker, der tidligere har været fejret i den amerikanske tidsånd, er faldet fra hinanden de sidste 40 år. Beretningen starter efter slutningen af anden verdenskrig, da Vances bedsteforældre flytter til Ohio, i håbet om at finde arbejde. Selvom "Hillbilly Elegy" kunne ses som beviset på, at den amerikanske drøm er mulig, så løftes sløret på alle de usagte dele af Vances familiehistorie, alkoholismen, fattigdommen og traumerne.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Waterstones Nonfiction Book of the Month (June) ‘THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR’ Sunday Times ‘You will not read a more important book about America this year’ Economist ‘A memoir of life in the Trump-voting white working class is the political book of the year’ Sunday Times ‘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. The Vance family story begins hopefully in post-war 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. 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. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humour and vividly colourful 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.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Waterstones Nonfiction Book of the Month (June) ‘THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR’ Sunday Times ‘You will not read a more important book about America this year’ Economist ‘A memoir of life in the Trump-voting white working class is the political book of the year’ Sunday Times ‘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. The Vance family story begins hopefully in post-war 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. 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. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humour and vividly colourful 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.