Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis-乡下人的悲歌

 《Hillbilly Elegy》是耶鲁大学法学院毕业生J.D. Vance的回忆录。J.D. Vance自幼生活在美国阿巴拉契亚山区的Kentucky，这里居住着一群称之为“Hillbilly”（中译为“乡巴佬”）的美国白人劳工阶层，他们的生活图景与我们所熟知的美国中产阶级白人印象相去甚远。这里民风彪悍，在法律之外自有一套道德体系，人们崇尚用暴力解决纠纷，极力维护持枪权；贫困、家庭暴力、毒品就如同遗传病，在一代代人中不断复发，像一个漩涡，限制了眼界，摧毁了心智，让人不敢对生活有丝毫的信心，如此往复，恶性循环。

J.D.Vance无疑是Hillbilly中的幸运儿。他的家庭有着Hillbilly典型的特征：长辈们酗酒、暴力，从未接受过高等教育；母亲在高中毕业即怀孕、结婚、离婚，紧接着出现了无数个短暂的男友，也毫无意外地成为一个瘾君子。作者自小在家庭暴力中成长，因为母亲频繁更换男友而时常搬家、居无定所，曾亲眼目睹母亲被警察逮捕，他本应和其他人一样，带着幼时的各种创伤，也成为一个贫穷、懒惰、暴力的Hillbilly。让他有机会摆脱这一切的是他的外婆，作者称她为Mamaw。虽然Mamaw也是举止粗鲁、崇尚暴力，但却能够让作者在动荡的成长历程中有一个安定的庇护所，让他感受到持续的安全感和爱；更重要的是，Mamaw始终认为教育是Hillbilly们改变命运的少数选择之一，她鼓励作者无论如何也要进入大学深造。在Mamaw的庇护和鼓励下，J.D. Vance顺利地完成了高中学业，随后进入了美国海军陆战队并参加了伊拉克战争，战后进入俄亥俄州立大学及耶鲁大学法学院学习，是耶鲁大学法学院极少数来自底层阶层的学生之一。他的人生轨迹可以说是屌丝逆袭，是美国梦的典型。

《Hillbilly Elegy》原本只是作者比较私人的回忆录，但却在2017年特朗普当选为美国总统后，一跃登上《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜榜首，因为人们认为这本书所描写的美国底层白人劳工阶层的生活状况，正是特朗普当选的背后推动力，很多人希望通过该书来读懂美国真实的样子从而理解特朗普提出的“重燃美国梦”的含义。

过去几十年中我们常听到美国梦，但《Hillbilly Elegy》让我们看到，美国梦的光环下，有多少美国底层白人陷入泥淖无法自拔。J.D. Vance在书中表示，这些底层白人对生活缺乏信心，他们从来不认为自己和中产白人是同一类人，他们也不信任任何代表精英阶层的政客，痛恨这些政客所推行的全球化政策，因为正是这些政策，让美国的制造业岗位不断减少，塑造了现在的“铁锈”地带，而失业是生活崩溃的根源。所以，特朗普的反全球化政策自然是正中他们下怀，他们便用手中的选票和精英阶层相抗衡，特朗普总统才有机会横空出世。 

书名：Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis《乡下人的悲歌》

作者：J.D. Vance

简介：Hillbilly Elegy 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.

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 in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his 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.