Barbara Kingsolver Rips JD Vance For His Portrayal of Appalachia: ‘Anti-Hillbilly Bigotry’

Award-winning author Barbara Kingsolver snubbed JD Vance ’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy for its depiction of Appalachia, calling the GOP senator’s book “condescending.” Kingsolver, who was born and raised in rural Kentucky in Southern Appalachia, said that fellow Appalachians “felt betrayed” by Vance’s memoir long before he became a Republican politician. She accused the Ohio statesman of suggesting “we’re in a boat that’s sinking because we’re lazy, unambitious and uncreative” in an interview with the Guardian . The “hollowness” of Vance’s memoir, Kingsolver said, proved “he isn’t really one of us.” Hillbilly Elegy ’s positive public reception, according to her, comes from the memoir confirming well-established stereotypes. “I’ve dealt with this condescension, this anti-hillbilly bigotry for a lot of my life,” she said, adding that her rural roots led to her feeling snubbed throughout her career. In 2022, however, Kingsolver won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead , which tackles the opioid crisis in modern Appalachia. She credited the region’s exploitation by outsiders, like Vance, for inspiring the book: “We have to talk about history. This was done to us. This region has been treated as a kind of internal colony exploited by the outside.”

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