elegy

As I wrote in an elegy for my country, we got here because people don’t read history books anymore, which led to collective amnesia about reality.

The book may never wind up on a bestseller list or see the big screen, but Terra Vance said its lessons on empathy and perseverance are “the real hillbilly elegy.”

The memoir serves as a critique of the country’s treatment of white blue-collar workers — the “hillbillies” of the “elegy.”

Thomas Floyd, a critic for The Washington Post, called it “transfixing” and said “this morality tale launches with toe-tapping propulsion before anchoring for an intimate elegy on grief and guilt.”

Shifting between Palestine and the U.S., this heart-wrenching collection is, in part, an elegy for the dead, the dying and all that has been lost.