pstrongTHEem em1em NEW YORK TIMES emBESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSOstrongbrppstrongYou will not read a more important book about America this year.strongstrong--emThe Economist emstrongppstrongA riveting book.--emThe Wall Street JournalemstrongppstrongEssential reading.--David Brooks, strongstrong strongemstrongNew York TimesstrongemppemHillbilly Elegyem is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.ppThe Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were