Public Demand for J.D. Vance’s Backstory Continues to Rise

We’ve heard a lot about polls lately, and although polls certainly have their place, spontaneous sales of print and streaming content oftentimes speak louder.

In the week following the announcement that J.D. Vance would be former president and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s pick as running mate in the upcoming 2024 election, book sales of Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” rose a humongous 13,000%.

And that’s not all. During the week following the announcement, 197,000 print copies flew off the shelves, and the book became the #1 seller across all genres.

Additionally, when the e-book and audio book sales are taken into consideration, over 650,000 copies of “Hillbilly Elegy” were purchased during that monumental week, bringing the total sales since its release to more than 3 million copies.

Current demand has been so great at retail outlets that to meet the increased need the publisher, HarperCollins, has ordered a new print run consisting of hundreds of thousands of copies.

Back in 2016 the phenomenal success of “Hillbilly Elegy” catapulted Vance into the celebrity realm long before he entered the political arena. Readers of the book loved it and spread the word of its unique story.

Vance’s real life tale is a compelling one.

A fatherless home, a mother who fell prey to drug addiction, a poverty that defies description, a rescue by family members, an ascent to Marine Corps manhood, an undergraduate college advancement, and a Yale Law school trophy.

Truly the embodiment of the American dream.

The book also provides something else: A window into the Appalachian culture, featuring virtues to be treasured as well as vices to overcome. So reminiscent of sociological traits that are seen in various other multi-cultures across our country.

This all lends to the relatability and, of course, the popularity of Vance’s life story.

His backstory has been routinely cited by a wide variety of political experts (including his present political opponents) in an attempt to more fully understand the Trump campaign victory in 2016.

The candid portrait of Appalachia in particular and of rural poverty in general has helped many to appreciate the appeal of the former president to the forgotten members of the working class.

Interestingly, the critics heaped praise on Vance’s book.

The book’s original title is “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”

In 2020 Hollywood produced a film adaptation of the book with the shortened title “Hillbilly Elegy.”

The movie was released in select cinemas before its streaming release on Netflix. It was the most-watched film on the site the first day of its release, before finishing third in its debut weekend.

Glenn Close portrays Vance’s “Mamaw” (which in 2021 earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), Amy Adams plays Vance’s mother, and Gabriel Basso portrays the teen version of J.D.

Despite having the Oscar-winning director Ron Howard and a stellar cast, many in the film critic community slammed the movie. The aggregated critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website gave the film an unduly low 25% rating.

However, much like the book, after the announcement that Vance had been selected to be the GOP vice presidential nominee, the movie almost immediately trended on Netflix, and viewership grew by more than 1,180%.

The interest in Vance’s backstory caused the film version of “Hillbilly Elegy” to debut in the eighth position on the Netflix Global Top 10 Movies chart the week of the announcement of the veep nominee. The movie had a whopping 4.8 million views.

The organic success of the book as well as the movie is reflective of how people from all across the social, economic, and cultural strata can relate to a story that features the triumph of the human spirit.

“Hillbilly Elegy” may just end up translating into votes that echo throughout the mountains and valleys of the American landscape.

A Win for J.D. Vance Would Be a Boon for the U.S. Senate

J.D. Vance has had great success as an attorney, venture capitalist and author.

The modern-day Renaissance man may soon be adding another notch to his career belt, that of U.S. Senator.

The son of Donald Bowman and Bev Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio, after the family moved there from Jackson, Kentucky.

His parents divorced early on, so he and his sister went to live with their grandparents James and Bonnie Vance. As a tribute to them, J.D. later chose to take on the surname of Vance.

He attended Middletown High School, and after graduating he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he served in the Iraq War. He went on to attend Ohio State University and later earned his Yale law degree.

He took on the corporate law firm world, and then moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a partner with Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital.

He experienced an additional game changer in 2016, when Harper published his book “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.” The book enjoyed phenomenal success and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for months.

“Hillbilly Elegy” tells the story of the strengths and struggles of one of America’s truly forgotten segments, a group that is largely invisible to our nation’s leaders, media outlets and business communities. It is the subculture of impoverished whites living in rural America.

As the title indicates, the book sheds light on the culture of Appalachia, those with whom J.D.’s family shares its rural Kentucky roots before additional ones were established in the Ohio Rust Belt.

The book would take flight in a different manner in 2017. Iconic director-actor Ron Howard signed on to direct a film version of “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was released by Netflix in 2020. This would also be the year that J.D. would become a CNN contributor.

His upbringing and life experiences informed his positions on national policies in a dynamic way, which helped to prepare him for his campaign run as well as his likely senate post. He is expected to win the Ohio seat.

As would be expected, MSNBC hosts have gone on the attack against the Republican candidate.

A recent MSNBC panel used the final debate between J.D. and Dem candidate Tim Ryan to target J.D. while simultaneously slamming “white Republican men.”

Abortion was the overriding theme of the panel discussion, though, which is consistent with the hierarchy of issues being pushed by Democrats and their allies in the lead-up to the midterms.

Host Joy Reid, along with Democratic strategist and frequent guest Kurt Bardella, went on the attack against J.D. Then Bardella flatly stated that J.D. and other Republicans do not understand how “a baby is actually made.”

“I mean the one thing we’ve seen during the abortion debate that’s unfolding is that most of these White Republican men have no idea how a baby is actually made,” Bardella stated.

Reid agreed, saying, “Do they even know how to make a baby? I don’t think they do, and he [J.D.] has kids!”

Just for the record, J.D. has been married to former law school classmate Usha Chilukuri Vance for eight years and the couple has three children.

The negative focus on abortion and white GOP males by the Democrats and liberal media appears to be the result of an increase in J.D.’s voter support, as indicated in a recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll.

The poll shows a 47% to 45% lead for J.D. This suggests that there has been a significant swing in recent weeks from Ryan’s one-point advantage over J.D. to J.D.’s current 3 point advantage.

Although Ryan has attempted to portray himself as a pragmatic moderate, many voters have taken note of Ryan’s voting record in Congress, where he has consistently voted in lockstep with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Voters may also recall that during his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign he sounded unmistakably woke.

In contrast, J.D.’s relatability appeals to average everyday folks because he really has lived their same pain. In the Ohio steel town home of his youth, he felt the aftereffects of an ever shrinking economy.

Additionally, like so many families affected by addictions of various sorts, his mother tragically became addicted to heroin. Grandmother “Mamaw” came to his rescue, bringing stability to his life and teaching him to accept responsibility for his actions.

Mamaw told him that he lived in the “best and greatest country on earth,” which in J.D.’s words “gave meaning to my childhood.”

J.D.’s writings and life example stand as a testament to the axiom that the virtues of humility and fortitude are forged in the triumph over adversity.

“One of the things Hillbilly Elegy is about is a struggle to find stability in your own life, but also to become a good person when you didn’t have an easy upbringing,” J.D. shared. “That means being a good husband and a good father, and being capable enough to provide for your family.”

A search for the source of goodness has led him on a faith journey. He was raised as an evangelical Protestant but ended up unattached to any particular religious denomination. Then in 2016, he began thinking more deeply about his faith and became a Catholic Christian in 2019.

“When I looked at the people who meant the most to me, they were Catholic. My uncle by marriage is a Catholic,” he explained.

As a Confirmation patron name, he chose a figure that is beloved by Christians, philosophers and academics alike, St. Augustine, who authored a book that J.D., like so many others, finds inspirational, “Confessions.”

Sure would be nice if the pursuit of virtue that J.D. exhibits could rub off on his future colleagues in D.C.