Mountaineer Fernweh

Book Review Hillbilly Elegy  by J.D. Vance Harper Collins, 2016  264 pages $27.95 A New York Times best-seller, Vance’s book, written in advance of the 2016 election, is a memoir of his own experiences growing up as a “hillbilly” in Ohio. In many ways essential reading for our time, it is a world I recognize, though thankfully was not a part of. Vance’s recollection of family dysfunction, substance abuse, and economic struggle on his course to Yale Law is ultimately an uplifting story and a much needed window into the working classes. At the same time, it is not without fault. As Vance concedes early, most of his life was spent between Cincinnati and Dayton, in Middletown, Ohio. His family was one of the millions that left for industrial jobs in factories; the “hillbilly” connection is through his parents and grandparents, who came to Ohio from Jackson County, Kentucky after World War II. His connection to Jackson is a place of the family homestead, of long summer and h