Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by J. Vance about the Appalachian values of his Kentucky family and their relation to the social problems of his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents moved when they were young. Hillbilly Elegy, the highly-anticipated film adaptation of J.D. Vance's bestselling memoir, received mixed reviews upon release, to put it mildly, with critics on Rotten Tomatoes giving it a score of just 27 percent. HILLBILLY ELEGY.CUT TO THE CHASE. NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Alex. In 1997, young JD Vance (Owen Aztalos) lives in Middletown Ohio, but spends much of his time in rural Jackson, Kentucky where his extended family lives. His grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close) fled her family from there after getting pregnant at thirteen. Vance – Hillbilly Elegy Audiobook. She gave birth to Vance throughout her 2nd marriage, which degenerated shortly afterward. Her next other half, Bob Hamel, embraced Vance and also was a fairly type guy, and also the family members attained something like security for a small stretch of time, throughout which J.D. Participated in school as well as developed a love for reading. Vance hesitated because of his family. Lindsay had two kids and was expecting a third, and he feared that his grandmother’s health was failing. Yet as the Iraq crisis became the Iraq War, Vance.
Netflix’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ an original to the platform, directed by Ron Howard, is an adaptation of J.D. Vance’s memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.’ It portrays the desperate attempts of an Appalachian family residing in Middletown, Ohio, as they try to pursue the American dream by following three generations of the family.
The youngest member of the Vance family, J.D. Vance, is the main character. In the family drama, J.D.’s relationship with his grandparents, sister, and most importantly, mother, Bev Vance, takes center stage. After all, Bev’s problems with substance abuse are what caused J.D.’s whole world to turn upside down. Let’s find out the current whereabouts of J.D.’s mother Bev Vance, shall we?
Who Is Bev Vance?
Bev Vance is a woman who worked as a nurse at one point in her life and valued education and integrity most of all. She was even the salutatorian of her high school class, but unfortunately, she had to postpone earning a Bachelor’s degree because she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Lindsay, when she was just 19-years-old. Then, unlike her siblings, Bev succumbed to the statistical odds of growing up in an unstable home and recycled that with her kids.
She would subject J.D. and Lindsay to experiences of domestic violence, substance abuse, and instability as she never could hold onto a romantic relationship for too long. Bev, who learned how to be hot-headed from her mother, sadly took it one step further when she combined her attitude with her affinity towards drugs and alcohol. When her kids – Lindsay and J.D. – were growing up, instead of caring for them, she stayed out late to have fun.
When her father died, Bev developed a dependency on prescription pain medication, which eventually led her to use heroin – the substance she overdosed on when J.D. was at Yale. Thankfully, though, with Bev’s career and her mother raising her kids, they were able to learn the importance of intellectual abilities and be safe from harm.
Where Is Bev Vance Now?
Bev Vance, still residing in working-class Middletown, Ohio, is now doing much better than when her children were younger. A few years ago, she understood the extensive impact her actions had on her children, and because she wanted to be a part of her grandchildren’s lives for as long as possible, in a way that she wasn’t for her own brood, Bev turned over a new leaf. Bev went to a 12-step program, accepted the help she knew she needed, and became sober with the support of her loved ones.
Today, it’s been over six years since she has even touched a drop of alcohol or any harmful/addictive narcotics. As for how she makes a living, even at her age, Bev is working, earning money by being a house cleaner and a bookkeeper, two of the most honest and humbling jobs known to us, in and around her residential area. Moreover, whenever she’s not busy with her occupation, Bev spends as much time as possible with her two children and five grandchildren, making up for all the lost time.
Read More: Where Is J.D Vance’s Sister Now?
Author | J. D. Vance |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Rural sociology, poverty, family drama |
Published | June 2016 (Harper Press) |
Publisher | Harper |
Pages | 264 |
Awards | Audie Award for Nonfiction |
ISBN | 978-0-06-230054-6 |
OCLC | 952097610 |
LC Class | HD8073.V37 |
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by J. D. Vance about the Appalachian values of his Kentucky family and their relation to the social problems of his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents moved when they were young.
Summary[edit]
Vance describes his upbringing and family background while growing up in the city of Middletown, Ohio, the third largest city in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. He writes about a family history of poverty and low-paying, physical jobs that have since disappeared or worsened in their guarantees, and compares this life with his perspective after leaving it.
Though Vance was raised in Middletown, his mother and her family were from Breathitt County, Kentucky. Their Appalachian values include traits like loyalty and love of country, despite social issues including violence and verbal abuse. He recounts his grandparents' alcoholism and abuse, and his unstable mother's history of drug addictions and failed relationships. Vance's grandparents eventually reconciled and became his de facto guardians. He was pushed by his tough but loving grandmother, and eventually Vance was able to leave Middletown to attend Ohio State University and Yale Law School.[1]
Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions such as the responsibility of his family and people for their own misfortune. Vance blames hillbilly culture and its supposed encouragement of social rot. Comparatively, he feels that economic insecurity plays a much lesser role. To lend credence to his argument, Vance regularly relies on personal experience. As a grocery store checkout cashier, he watched welfare recipients talk on cell phones although the working Vance could not afford one. His resentment of those who seemed to profit from poor behavior while he struggled, especially combined with his values of personal responsibility and tough love, is presented as a microcosm of the reason for Appalachia's overall political swing from strong Democratic Party to strong Republican affiliations. Likewise, he recounts stories intended to showcase a lack of work ethic including the story of a man who quit after expressing dislike over his job's hours and posted to social media about the 'Obama economy', as well as a co-worker, with a pregnant girlfriend, who would skip work.[1]
Publication[edit]
The book was popularized by an interview with the author published by The American Conservative in late July 2016. The volume of requests briefly disabled the website. Halfway through the next month, The New York Times wrote that the title had remained in the top ten Amazon bestsellers since the interview's publication.[1]
Vance credits his Yale contract law professor Amy Chua as the 'authorial godmother' of the book.[2]
Reception[edit]
Lindsay Vance Hillbilly Elegy Book
The book reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list in August 2016[3] and January 2017.[4] Many journalists criticized Vance for generalizing too much from his personal upbringing in suburban Ohio.[5][6][7][8]
American Conservative contributor and blogger Rod Dreher expressed admiration for Hillbilly Elegy, saying that Vance 'draws conclusions…that may be hard for some people to take. But Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has been extremely hard won.'[9] The following month, Dreher posted about why liberals loved the book.[10]New York Post columnist and editor of CommentaryJohn Podhoretz described the book as among the year's most provocative.[11] The book was positively received by conservatives such as National Review columnist Mona Charen[12] and National Review editor and Slate columnist Reihan Salam.[13]
Lindsay Vance Hillbilly Elegy
By contrast, Jared Yates Sexton of Salon criticized Vance for his 'damaging rhetoric' and for endorsing policies used to 'gut the poor.' He argues that Vance 'totally discounts the role racism played in the white working class's opposition to President Obama.'[14] Sarah Jones of The New Republic mocked Vance as 'the false prophet of Blue America,' dismissing him as 'a flawed guide to this world' and the book as little more than 'a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class.'[6]The New York Times wrote that Vance's direct confrontation of a social taboo is admirable regardless of whether the reader agrees with his conclusions. The newspaper writes that Vance's subject is despair, and his argument is more generous in that it blames fatalism and learned helplessness rather than indolence.[1] Bob Hutton of Jacobin wrote that Vance's argument relied on circular logic, ignored existing scholarship on Appalachian poverty, and was 'primarily a work of self-congratulation.'[5]Sarah Smarsh with The Guardian noted that 'most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia' and called into question Vance's generalizations about the white working class from his personal upbringing.[7]
A 2017 Brookings Institution report noted that, “JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became a national bestseller for its raw, emotional portrait of growing up in and eventually out of a poor rural community riddled by drug addiction and instability.' Vance's account anecdotally confirmed the report's conclusion that family stability is essential to upward mobility.[15] The book provoked a response in the form of an anthology, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll. The essays in the volume criticize Vance for making broad generalizations and reproducing myths about poverty.[8]
Film adaptation[edit]
A film adaptation was released in select theaters in the United States on November 11, 2020, then digitally on Netflix on November 24. It was directed by Ron Howard and stars Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Gabriel Basso[16][17] and Haley Bennett. Although a few days of filming were planned for the book's setting of Middletown, Ohio,[18] much of the filming in the summer of 2019 was in Atlanta, Clayton and Macon, Georgia, using the code name 'IVAN.'[19][20]
References[edit]
Lindsay Vance Hillbilly Elegy 2
- ^ abcdSenior, Jennifer (August 10, 2016). 'Review: In 'Hillbilly Elegy,' a Tough Love Analysis of the Poor Who Back Trump'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
- ^Heller, Karen (February 6, 2017). ''Hillbilly Elegy' made J.D. Vance the voice of the Rust Belt. But does he want that job?'. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
- ^Barro, Josh (August 22, 2016). 'The new memoir 'Hillbilly Elegy' highlights the core social-policy question of our time'. Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 13, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
- ^'Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Books – Best Sellers – January 22, 2017'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
- ^ ab'Hillbilly Elitism'. jacobinmag.com. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
- ^ abJones, Sarah (November 17, 2016). 'J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America'. The New Republic. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^ abSmarsh, Sarah (October 13, 2016). 'Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans'. The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
- ^ abGarner, Dwight (February 25, 2019). ''Hillbilly Elegy' Had Strong Opinions About Appalachians. Now, Appalachians Return the Favor'. The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
- ^Dreher, Rod (July 11, 2016). 'Hillbilly America: Do White Lives Matter?'. The American Conservative. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^Dreher, Rod (August 5, 2016). 'Why Liberals Love 'Hillbilly Elegy''. The American Conservative. Archived from the original on October 12, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^Podhoretz, John (October 16, 2016). 'The Truly Forgotten Republican Voter'. Commentary. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
- ^'Hillbilly Elegy: J.D. Vance's New Book Reveals Much about Trump & America'. National Review. July 28, 2016. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^'Reihan Salam on Twitter: 'Very excited for @JDVance1. HILLBILLY ELEGY is excellent, and it'll be published in late June:''. Twitter. April 30, 2016. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^Jared Yates Sexton (March 11, 2017). 'Hillbilly sellout: The politics of J. D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' are already being used to gut the working poor'. Salon. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
- ^Eleanor Krause and Richard V. Reeves (2017) Rural Dreams: Upward Mobility in America's Countryside, pp.12–13. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/es_20170905_ruralmobility.pdfArchived December 6, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
- ^Williams, Trey (April 12, 2019). Close%5d%5d plays a strong matriarch, Mamaw, who saves the hero./ 'Ron Howard-Directed 'Hillbilly Elegy' Casts Gabriel Basso in Lead Role' Check
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value (help). TheWrap. Archived from the original on May 13, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019. - ^WKRC (April 16, 2019). ''Hillbilly Elegy' expected to be filmed locally; more cast members sign on'. Local 12/WKRC-TV. Archived from the original on April 17, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
- ^Kiesewetter, John (June 3, 2019). 'Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Visit Middletown For 'Hillbilly Elegy' Meeting'. WVXU Cincinnati Public Radio. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019.
- ^Walljasper, Matt (June 27, 2019). 'What's filming in Atlanta now? Lovecraft Country, The Conjuring 3, Waldo, Hillbilly Elegy, and more'. Atlanta Magazine. Archived from the original on June 28, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
- ^Chandler, Tom (July 3, 2019). 'Netflix to begin filming movie 'Ivan' in Macon'. The Georgia Sun. Archived from the original on July 5, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
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