Autobiographical bestseller, movie on Netflix… Before being Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance found success with “Hillbilly Elegy”

2024-07-17 05:24:12

Published on 07/16/2024 3:28 pm

Updated 17/07/2024 07:24

Reading time: 5 min

The Republican senator from Ohio was chosen as a running mate by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the White House, during the party’s convention in Wisconsin on July 15, 2024. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP)

The young Republican senator from Ohio, whom Donald Trump has just chosen to become vice-president if elected to the White House, also has the hat of a successful writer.

He is described as the declassified American. The new partner of the former US president, James David Vance, 39, is not only the Republican senator from Ohio from 2022 but is also the author of the book. Hillbilly Elegysold 3 million copies since 2016. This commercial success – which was adapted into a film broadcast on Netflix under the title, in French, ofAn American Hunter –He is no stranger to his choice of Donald Trump.

It was at the famous Yale University that JD Vance suggested for his book Hillbilly Elegy, which was published in 2016 and which made it known to everyone. Because before joining Donald Trump’s ticket for the American election, the young man experienced an atypical journey, which will lead to the writing of the best seller, in the great style of the “American dream” … and opposite Donald Trump, whose father is a billionaire.

James David Vance grew up in a small single-parent family in Ohio, a state in the “Rust Belt”, this region of the northeast of the United States is deeply marked by work behind, before entering the war. He then studied law at Yale, one of the most prestigious universities in the country, before working in Silicon Valley.

Although the author of Hillbilly Elegy stop being a “hillbilly”, which can be translated as “redneck” or “hillbilly”, and let us hear in his work the voice of the working man, the depressed and the white people of the northern border- America’s sleep, deeply marked by industrial decline, unemployment and addictions of all kinds.

“He describes with humanity and kindness the hard life of these ‘little whites’ from the Midwest, these ‘hillbillies’, who are said to be xenophobic and who voted for Donald Trump.”

from the fourth cover of “Hillbilly Elegie”

The book, published by Harper, was quickly popular and appeared on the bestseller list New York Times in 2016 and 2017. Hillbilly Elegy translated into French in 2017, comes with this back cover : “‘Where Americans see Hillbillies, rednecks or dirty whites, I see my neighbors, my friends, my family.’ In this work that is both personal and political, JD Vance […] asking important questions. How can we eat enough in the richest country in the world? How did democratic, working class, respectable America become Republican, poor and angry? ” As a direct result of his appointment by Donald Trump, sales of the book are on the rise again, climbing to the highest sales positions on Amazon in the United States.

In 2017, on France CultureBrice Couturier reviews the book: “Born into the working class, he joined the ranks of the big bourgeoisie by becoming a famous commercial lawyer and this is exactly what his book says: it is a biography.
But this biography is not like the angry self-celebrations of “self-made men” who are bored in their 300 m² apartments on 5th Avenue like to tell scribes. It is a hard, lucid, uncompromising book, written by a man who, of course, has crossed the class barrier, but who has great sympathy for his native community. And he ends with many recommendations on the best way to remedy the misery, material and moral, in which his people have found themselves.

Riding on this success in bookstores, in 2020, Netflix bought the rights to Hillbilly Elegy for an adaptation in 2020. Film An American hunter was directed by Ron Howard with Amy Adams and Glenn Close in the lead roles.

The success of the book was concomitant with the 2016 US presidential election and appeared to help understand the white working class vote for Donald Trump. According to the chronicler of New York TimesRoss Douthat, who had a lengthy interview with JD Vance last June, as reported by Courrier internationalyou have “We read with attention and gratitude by Trump opponents, who are looking for a window into populism” and put forward a possible explanation for Maga [acronyme de Make America Great Again, “Rendre sa grandeur à l’Amérique“, un des slogans phares de Donald de Trump].

JD Vance’s book is published in France by Globe and Livre de Pocket. (CAPTURE D’ECRAN / FRANCEINFO)

Once an opponent of the former President of the United States, JD Vance later repented and approached the Trumpist party. So he approved the main themes of Donald Trump, and his combative tone and populist speech, and received the support of the billionaire in his campaign for the Senate in 2022.

He, who showed his Christian faith as a private and political compass, put himself in Congress as a fierce defender of the Republican magnate, who was targeted by many criminals and civil processes. His book even attracted the attention of the eldest son of the former president, Donald Trump Jr., with whom he became close friends. The latter would have played an important role in his selection as the running mate of the Republican candidate for the White House.

If Donald Trump, 78, is re-elected next November, the father of three, who has become a popular television personality on which he vigorously and loyally defends the Republican presidential candidate, will become vice-president in only 39 years old. JD Vance will be one of the three youngest youths to achieve this position in American history and will then sign a true American history.