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What is 'Hillbilly Elegy' about? All about JD Vance's book amid VP pick.
By Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY,
7 hours ago
Capitol Hill is rarely the only career venture for politicians. Before taking office, many elected officials have already made a name for themselves in business, economics, advocacy work or tech.
Here’s everything you need to know about Vance’s 2016 bestseller and its 2020 film adaptation.
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) gestures while speaking during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. Kent Nishimura, Getty Images
JD Vance’s book: What is ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ about?
Vance has written one book – his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” was published in 2016 by HarperCollins Publisher. He was under contract to write a second book, "A Relevant Faith: Searching for a Meaningful American Christianity," but the project fell through, the Associated Press reported in 2022. He also wrote a foreword to Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott's "Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley – Making AI Serve Us All."
“Hillbilly Elegy” tells the story of a childhood plagued by abuse, alcoholism and poverty. It follows Vance’s white, working-class family from his grandparents in Kentucky’s Appalachia region to his coming-of-age in Middletown, Ohio. Vance also chronicles his time in the Marines and higher education, touching on “generational upward mobility” and carrying “the demons of his chaotic family history.”
"I think of so much of politics through the eyes of my Mamaw and Papaw...they grew up very poor and they moved to southern Ohio because that was the land of opportunity," told a crowd in Delaware during his 2022 Senate bid. "That was the place where a guy could work hard and play by the rules and raise a family on a single middle-class income."
Vance had the name recognition of “Hillbilly Elegy” on his side by the time he ran against Rep. Ryan. Many saw him as a politician able to identify with everyday Americans. But not all Appalachians felt themselves represented in its telling of white, middle-class families.
One review in The Atlantic criticizes the film and book for framing poverty as a “moral failing of individuals” rather than a larger system at work: “Hillbilly Elegy has to simplify the people and problems of Appalachia, because it has decided to tell the same old pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps narrative that so many of us reject.”
Glenn Close (left) stars as the matriarch trying to keep her family, including her daughter (Amy Adams) and grandson (Owen Asztalos), out of trouble in Ron Howard's "Hillbilly Elegy." LACEY TERRELL/NETFLIX
‘Hillbilly Elegy’ movie cast: Who played JD Vance in the film adaptation?
Ron Howard directed an adaptation of Vance’s memoir, which was released in select theaters and on Netflix in November 2020. “Hillbilly Elegy” stars Amy Adams as his mother, Bev Vance, and Glenn Close as his grandmother, Mamaw. Gabriel Basso plays J.D. Vance and Owen Asztalos plays a younger version of him.
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