Online Book Discussion Group: Hillbilly Elegy

Zoom Online Program: [Click here to join](https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcvdu2rqzIvGdcadFSF1EkratDZg8Btgqwh)
Meeting ID:932 1435 9533
Passcode: 842402

Join a library staff member for an informative book discussion. New members welcome and registration is not required.

This month's selection is: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vanc

[Reserve the Book or the Audio Book on CD Here](https://sumter.librarycatalog.info/polaris/search/searchresults.aspx?ct…)

[Reserve Axis 360 eBook or Axis 360 eAudio](https://sclsfl.axis360.baker-taylor.com/Search?searchby=author&term=Van….)

[Discussion Questions](https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/non-fiction/10799-hillbilly-el…)

Things could have so easily turned out differently for Vance. Growing up in a working-class family riven by strife and seemingly incapable of escaping its rural Kentucky roots, Vance spent his youth bouncing between homes, a succession of father figures, and ever more explosive situations. The story of how he overcame his upbringing to graduate from Yale Law School and embark on a stable and happy adulthood poses the bigger question of how the obstacles facing other such "hillbillies" can be surmounted. Vance compellingly describes the terrible toll that alcoholism, drug abuse, and an unrelenting code of honor took on his family, neither excusing the behavior nor condemning it. Instead, he pulls back to examine the larger social forces at work for white, working-class Americans with ties to Appalachia. The portrait that emerges is a complex one, where die-hard cultural beliefs contribute to a downward spiral for Vance's family and those like them. Unerringly forthright, remarkably insightful, and refreshingly focused, Hillbilly Elegy is the cry of a community in crisis. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.