Antrim Eclectic Book Club - "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance

On Thursday May 19, 2022,  Antrim Eclectic Book Club members will be analyzing Hillbilly Elegy  by J.D. Vance.  A Marine, and a graduate of Yale Law School, Vance  currently is the Republican  candidate for the United States Senate from Ohio.  Vance’s memoir describes the economic and social plunge that generations  of rural whites have  taken in  southern Ohio (really part of Appalachia) .  After Vance’s parents divorced, his  mother’s third husband adopted him.  However, it was his grandparents, especially his grandmother, who actually raised him.  She sheltered Vance from the poverty and the drug addiction that bedeviled the rest of his family.  Vance maintains that at  the center of his family’s distress was a “hillbilly culture” which, he claims, had fostered regional social deterioration. 

      Please join us on Thursday May 19th between 2:15 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. at the James A. Tuttle Library in Antrim.

      Here are some discussion questions which may frame our discussion:

1.  How did the absence of father figure shape Vance’s development?

2. Why are the resident of Middletown so cynical about their fellow Americans?

3.  Why did Middletown decline economically so dramatically?  Is there any possibility that Middletown residents will reverse their decline?

4.   How does Vance view religion and conservatism?