Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance's memoir of a poor childhood in Appalachia, propelled its author to national notoriety in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. Back then, Vance was an avowed Never Trumper, and called the former president everything from an “idiot” to “America’s Hitler” to “a moral disaster.”
Vance’s account of the poverty, abuse and addiction that surrounded his life in Middletown, Ohio was seized upon by pundits as a guidebook to understanding the plight of the white, working class voters across the rust belt who won Trump his first term in office. The New York Times called it a “sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion,” and the book became a national bestseller.
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