“Hillbilly Elegy,” the memoir that propelled Ohio Senator J.D. Vance into the national spotlight, is experiencing a surge in sales following former President Donald Trump’s announcement of Vance as his running mate.
Originally ranking at no. 220 on Amazon’s bestseller list on Monday morning, Vance’s 2016 memoir skyrocketed to the number one spot after Trump’s announcement, as reported by the Associated Press.
“Hillbilly Elegy” has sold over 1.5 million copies to date, and experts predict that number will climb in the forthcoming months.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Vance outsells Stephen King this year,” Allan Salkin, co-owner of the New Books Company, a podcast production company that discusses book publishing, told the Wall Street Journal.
The book delves into Vance’s family history in Kentucky and Ohio, exploring the cultural and economic shifts that led some white working-class voters to switch their party allegiance from Democratic to Republican. Topics covered in “Hillbilly Elegy” include drug addiction, government assistance, and masculinity.
“I felt that if I wrote a very forthright, and sometimes painful, book, that it would open people’s eyes to the very real matrix of these problems,” Vance said in 2016. “Not as many people would pay attention to it if they assumed I was just another academic spouting off, and not someone who’s looked at these problems in a very personal way.”
Initially praised by conservative media, in part because of his criticism of the welfare state and the “cultural habits” he claimed perpetuated rural poverty, the memoir was also referenced in liberal outlets as offering potential explanations for Trump’s 2016 victory.
In 2020, “Hillbilly Elegy” was adapted into a film directed by Ron Howard, starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close. Although the movie received mixed reviews, it earned two Oscar nominations — Best Supporting Actress for Close and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Nevertheless, some from the region have heavily criticized Vance’s portrayal, arguing that his generalizations and suburban Ohio upbringing do not reflect true Appalachian life.
“’Elegy’ is little more than a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class. Vance’s central argument is that hillbillies themselves are to blame for their troubles,” Sarah Jones, a journalist from the border of southwest Virginia and east Tennessee, wrote in the New Republic in 2016.
“I look at my home and see a region abandoned by the government elected to serve it,” she continued. “Central Appalachia is a sea of distress. If you are born where I grew up, you have to travel hundreds of miles to find a prosperous America. How do you get off the dole when there’s not enough work to go around? Frequently, you don’t.”