Communion by JD Vance review — a strange, poignant book about faith

At the heart of this strange, perhaps rather poignant, book is the biblical question: “What must I do to be saved?” Not in the crude sense of how to secure a place in heaven, but as an urgent challenge to a whole repertoire of destructive assumptions and habits endorsed by the majority culture.

Vance’s famous first book, Hillbilly Elegy, chronicled the impact of substance abuse on generations of the rural poor; here he turns that lens on elite modernity, arguing its norms and expectations can be as lethal for the ambitious young professional as fentanyl is for the less privileged.

The US vice president offers a diagnosis that is not particularly original, but derives its force from the intensity of the personal questioning he undertook. He describes the pervasive mechanisms in education and the professional and political worlds that induct us into wanting what others want rather than what we regard as inherently desirable.

United States

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