Hillbilly Elegy, subtitled "A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, was embraced for its insights into Trump's appeal in Middle America, where job losses and the opioid crisis had driven many families into poverty, abuse, and addiction.
Then Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, a Republican, touted the book in his 2017 State of the Commonwealth address.
"It frankly talks about the cultural challenges that are that are challenging so much of our state, Eastern Kentucky in particular," he said. "It is a sobering and thought-provoking book that needs to be read by people who care about Kentucky."
But the book received a much different reception from author and Kentucky poet Laureate Silas House, a leading thinker in and about the South, who told Politico in 2022 that he regarded the book as a "treatise in disguise" that first struck him as a "launching pad for a political campaign."
"J.D. Vance should not be held up as a representative of Appalachia or working class people, as his book... displayed a contempt for both groups," House told WUKY News. "Since then, his reprehensible rhetoric about LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and people of color has solidified the dog whistles he used in that book."
Vance began as a seemingly fierce critic of Trump, once describing the former president as a "moral disaster" and "America's Hitler." But the senator has since become a staunch defender of the now-GOP presidential nominee.
One note: Silas House has produced podcasts for WUKY.
