The term “elegy” implies the lyrical. Both by its title and its narrative mode – a first-person narrator addressing a loved one – one might expect poeticism from Madeleine Watts’s ...

At the time of writing, the paperback version of the memoir sits at No. 1 and the hardback is at No. 2. Hillbilly Elegy has sold at least 1.6 million copies to date, according to the AP.