The Post’s review of Vance’s bestselling memoir, originally published in 2016.
J.D. Vance makes his way to the stage for an interview during the National Book Festival on Sept. 2, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. In recent months, J.D. Vance has become a spokesman for the cell phon working class, explaining why many of his “hillbilly” friends will vote for Trump but why he won’t. “These people — my people — are really struggling,” he said in a.
Vance movingly recounts the travails of his family — his grandparents, for example, who got together as teenagers and moved from Kentucky to Ohio for jobs at Armco, a steel company. Vance’s “Papaw” had a nasty drinking problem; his “Mamaw” could be just plain nasty. During one particularly vivid fight, Mamaw threatened to kill her husband if he ever came home drunk again. He did, so Mamaw poured lighter fluid on him and struck a match, leaving her children to put out the fire.
But actually getting to college wasn’t easy. Vance and his grandmother struggled with the financial-aid and loan forms. The potential for debt was so terrifying that Vance enlisted in the Marines. It was the right call — he says the military taught him discipline, time management and confidence in his ability to power through.In law school, Vance grappled with the legacy of his childhood. “Social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change,” he writes.
The wounds are partly self-inflicted. The working class, he argues, has lost its sense of agency and taste for hard work. In one illuminating anecdote, he writes about his summer job at the local tile factory, lugging 60-pound pallets around. It paid $13 an hour with good benefits and opportunities for advancement. A full-time employee could earn a salary well above the poverty line.
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