JD Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' continues to stir controversy and generate book sales

When JD Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy was published in the summer of 2016, it struck a nerve with liberals and conservatives alike and quickly became a national bestseller.

In her review for the New York Times, author Jennifer Senior called the book "a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion."

Almost overnight, Vance became a prominent voice on cable news, highlighting the struggles of white working-class Americans, particularly in Appalachia, which stretches from southern New York to northern Alabama and Georgia. These narratives played a crucial role in Donald Trump's presidential win over Hillary Clinton, bolstered by Trump's strong support of the coal industry and Clinton's controversial "basket of deplorables" remark about her opponent's supporters.

Now that Vance has been picked as Trump's 2024 running mate, Hillbilly Elegy is once again on bestseller lists, and its 2020 film adaptation of the same name has climbed onto Netflix's top 10 list. But a growing number of critics have also come forward with accusations that the work misrepresents the Appalachian community, with some claiming that Vance views them as lazy and pessimistic, and that their struggles with drug addiction, poverty and domestic abuse are self-inflicted.

Vance's supporters, however, believe his book to be an inspirational story of overcoming abject poverty. They assert his memoir was never intended to represent everyone; that it's his own tale of growing up in Ohio during a socioeconomic crisis and that he has brought more awareness to issues that have an impact on America's poor.

Here's what you need to know about Hillbilly Elegy — and why its author has ignited debates across the region.

The backdrop to Hillbilly Elegy

In the book, Vance recounts growing up in Middletown, Ohio, where he was exposed to a childhood of poverty, violence and his mother’s drug addiction. But Vance’s family roots extend back to Jackson, Ky., where his grandparents, "Mamaw" and "Papaw," were born, and it’s from there that Vance draws his cultural identity.

Hillbilly Elegy is set in the 1980s, roughly a decade after the U.S. steel industry collapsed. The economic downturn left many people, including members of Vance's family, unemployed and adrift.

Those still working in the mills and factories often sustained injuries due to inadequate safety measures. As a result, pharmaceutical companies aggressively targeted doctors in the area, promoting opioid painkillers as a safe and effective solution for pain management, leading to an increase of overdose deaths.

By the late 1990s, Appalachia was an epicenter of the opioid crisis. In the face of these challenges, many residents, including Vance's mother, turned to drugs, resulting in widespread addiction issues that Vance was forced to overcome.

'What he did in life wasn’t easy'

Debbie Tipton, a retired bank officer from Powell, Ky., said Vance’s story deeply resonated with her own experiences with growing up in Appalachia in the 1950s. Her father couldn’t find a job, forcing her family to move to Ohio.

“These were the only roots I had, the only place I felt stable. It was home,” she told Yahoo News of her upbringing in Kentucky. “I understand the feeling of how JD feels rooted here. What he did in life wasn’t easy. With the turmoil he had growing up, I'm sure this was the place he wanted to visit most, because everything good happened here.”

Having grown up in rural Kentucky in the 2000s, TJ Roberts told Yahoo News that he, too, witnessed severe drug addiction within his household. Like Vance, he also went on to become a lawyer and managed to escape a cycle of poverty that was so prevalent in Appalachia at that time.

"There is no obstacle one cannot overcome, and that is, in my opinion, the central message of Hillbilly Elegy," Roberts, now an attorney in northern Kentucky, told Yahoo News. "There is no single government solution to the problems afflicting America's rural working class, but JD was able to beat the odds, as did I."

'The lazy hillbilly'

Critics of Vance's book say he portrays Appalachians as "genetically inferior people who are lazy," Silas House, Kentucky's appointed poet laureate, told Yahoo News.

House argues that Vance unfairly blames eastern Kentuckians for challenges beyond their control, such as economic inequalities and systemic oppression, while offering “no historical or cultural context for the judgments he's making.”

In the book, Vance writes, “Poverty is the family tradition,” arguing that hillbilly culture “increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.”

“There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself,” Vance writes, noting that the difference between “the wealthy” and “working-class” is “a different set of norms.”

Published as a retort to Vance's book, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (2019) features essays written by Appalachians, presenting diverse perspectives and pride that its authors felt were missing from Vance's narrative.

Author Willie Carver believes Vance capitalized on people's emotional trauma while he was writing Hillbilly Elegy, and that he relied on stereotypes to fuel a false political narrative amid the heated 2016 election.

"He paints a story of the 'immoral Appalachian' whose very values make them immoral, and whose values are spreading into other states," he told Yahoo News. "This is a genius political tactic: Working-class folks in swing states now see themselves as the hardworking good guy, and see an 'other' — the lazy hillbilly ruining their state — as the real bad guy."

Others, including Appalachian author Matthew Ferrence, said the book judges impoverished families instead of seeking out practical solutions.

"Before and after the 2016 election, way too many people turned to Hillbilly Elegy as a source of insight," he told Yahoo News. "They found, instead, the stereotypes they already expected, which made it easier for people to continue ignoring the larger issues that create and maintain rural poverty."

There are also those who have discredited Vance's Appalachian roots — as Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is rumored to be on Kamala Harris' shortlist of vice presidential contenders, recently did when he summed up his feelings about Vance in an interview with CNN, saying simply, "He ain't one of us."

'JD meant to capture his own experience'

For many Appalachians, however, the debate over Vance’s book has itself become too overheated.

Michael Frazier, who works in eastern Kentucky conservative politics, said Hillbilly Elegy was never intended to be a definitive history book, but rather to "capture his own experience, to influence a discussion and to shed light upon the issues."

“We have so many people that tried to tear us down,” he told Yahoo News about the passionate response the book has elicited from many locals. “We’re always looking for an outlet, to uplift and find a way to get people to care about the area and to give a damn.”

Some locals have applauded Vance's depictions, noting that while the book may not speak for all of Appalachia, it does accurately depict life in rural Ohio, and specifically in Middletown.

"I've never seen a city that loves to hate itself as much as Middletown does," Rodney Muterspaw, the town's former police chief, told the New York Times.

Sandy Holbrook, an eastern Kentucky native, credits the book for prompting “critical discussions” about social change, even if she thinks Vance failed to acknowledge how far Appalachia has come.

“The Appalachia I knew is not the same as the Appalachia my sons work in, and it will not be the same Appalachia my grandsons will grow up in,” she told Yahoo News. “We overcome because we always do.”