Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio to escape the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success. -- But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he still carries the demons of their chaotic family history. -- A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country. -- Author J.D. Vance and Adam White of the Hoover Institute will join us to discuss Hillbilly Elegy and the future of blue-collar America. -- Featuring: J.D. Vance, Author, Hillbilly Elegy and Principal, Mithril Capital Management LLC. Moderator: Adam J. White, Research Fellow, The Hoover Institution and Adjunct Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University.