Review

I did not read this book when it was published in 2016, but with the author now the nominee of the Republican party for Vice President of the United States, it was time to go back and rectify this by reading his memoir. When he became the VP nominee, I knew only that he was a U.S. senator from Ohio and that he had written this book. Since then, I've learned that after high school, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, went to Ohio State University and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in political science and philosophy, attended and graduated from Yale Law School, practiced law with the firm Sidley Austin, and later worked in the venture capital business. He has been serving as the junior U.S. senator from Ohio since 2023. His Hillbilly Elegy documents his life prior to all of this. With family roots in the Appalachian area of Kentucky and his birth and growing up in Middleton, Ohio, a decaying steel town in the Rust Belt. Vance and his family were part of the white underclass. He grew up poor and in a highly dysfunctional family. His troubled mother was an addict and exposed Vance to a parade of husbands and boyfriends. She even came to him once and asked for a jar of his clear urine. She had to submit random urinalyses from the nursing board on short notice to keep her license and, since hers was dirty, wanted to submit his instead. Vance's narrative chronicles his own life as a "hillbilly" in detail and his relationships with family members. When in high school, he lived with his grandmother, Mamaw, for three years and he wrote, "Those three years with Mamaw--uninterrupted and alone--saved me." She had that toughness and swore like a trucker, but gave straight up advice and pushed him in the right direction. I call your attention to Chapter 9 of the book, a pivotal narration of these awakening and changing years. Hillbilly Elegy was very well received; a bestseller that has sold some two million copies. From hillbilly to Vice Presidential nominee. Quite a trip!

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