Hillbilly Elegy

"J.D. Vance walks you through the struggles of white working-class Americans making their way across a broken economic landscape. Ouch: The journey cuts. As he describes his rise from a chaotic home in Ohio’s Rust Belt to Yale Law School, he considers the economic changes that make people poor – and the personal failings that can keep them that way. He knows all about the alcoholism, drug abuse and bad work habits that hold some back. But he also sees the heartbreak and dislocation that accompany the loss of mining and manufacturing jobs. His people — “hillbillies” — have a story worth hearing."

"I wish everyone would read Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy together."