Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance was a really compelling memoir by someone born into difficult circumstances who with key help provided along the way, made it to his current state of being a 31-year-old Yale Law graduate working as a principal at a Silicon Valley investment firm.

Vance grew up in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, with his grandparents from the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky, and he notes that places like Middletown have over the years become practically feeder towns for those leaving Appalachia. Many of the problems of unstable home lives, alcoholism, and at least flirting with poverty have fed into the new communities and Vance writes how the problems of Middletown in many ways mirror those in the inner cities of metropolitan areas.

There's such a sense of upheaval and uncertainty for kids growing up in that region and Vance writes of how he doesn't view himself as a genius preordained to make it out, but rather someone shepherded during the times he most needed stability. When his mom would either be on a bender or otherwise busy switching from one failed male relationship to another, Vance was able to go his grandmother or even rely on his older sister. There was certainly entertaining reading in the book about hillbilly justice administered by his extended family, but the biggest thing that gave Vance a chance was this stability that wasn't coming from a more traditional mother and father present for him home life. Vance lived full-time with his grandmother the last few years of high school and then spent four years in the Army prior to attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School.

The book is a very fast read and interesting in that it tells the story of Vance’s upbringing, but also the themes related to his success. There's both the need for kids to have stability growing up and notion that even in areas where jobs are scarce, the larger problem can be a scarcity of a culture of hard work and idea that, especially with some help along the way, someone can overcome obstacles and have control over their life, effectively breaking out of a cycle.

The Legends Club by John Feinstein

The Legends Club by John Feinstein has the subtitle Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry and covers well the three men, and particularly the relationships between them.

Feinstein notes in the beginning how Smith was hired by North Carolina in 1961 and in a nine-day period in 1980, Duke and NC State hired Valvano and Krzyzewski. The three men were very different from one another, with Smith the cover all bases in the pursuit of winning obsessive, Valvano the comet across the sky force of personality, and Krzyzewski the grinder, who adapted himself to succeed and improved in areas he needed to.

A commonality between the men seems to in their character, with one example Smith decades ago telling Feinstein that "you should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do the right thing" and another Valvano's speech at the 1993 ESPY Awards just prior to his death from cancer. The interactions written of between Krzyzewski and Valvano prior to him dying and then later between Krzyzewski and Smith prior to the former North Carolina coach dying were the most compelling parts of the book, first with Valvano undergoing cancer treatments at Duke and Krzyzewski often at his bedside and then Krzyzewski spending time with Coach Smith as he suffered from Dementia prior to his death in 2015.

There was definitely some poignant scenes written of the book and Feinstein seemed to do a very good job writing about the men, their competition with one another, and their coming together.