J.D. Vance offers a compelling, firsthand account of life among the white working poor, and in particular among a family with roots in the Appalachia region of northern Kentucky. It's easy to devise economic explanations for this group's stagnation and retrogression, but a deeply ingrained set of self-destructive ideas and behaviors renders futile most conventional, political approaches to remedying the problem. This is an episode you won't soon forget.