The backdrop to Hillbilly Elegy In the book, Vance recounts growing up in Middletown, Ohio, where he was exposed to a childhood of poverty, violence and his mother’s drug addiction.

In 2016, a venture capitalist and Yale law graduate named JD Vance published a memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” The instant bestseller turned Vance into a media star and was later adapted into an ...