The book reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list in August 2016[3] and January 2017.[4]
American Conservative contributor and blogger Rod Dreher expressed admiration for Hillbilly Elegy, saying that Vance "draws conclusions… that may be hard for some people to take. But Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has been extremely hard won."[5] The following month, Dreher posted about his theories about why liberals loved the book.[6] New York Post columnist and editor of Commentary John Podhoretz described the book as among the year's most provocative.[7] The book was positively received by conservatives such as National Review columnist Mona Charen[8] and National Review editor and Slate columnist Reihan Salam.[9]
By contrast, other journalists criticized Vance for generalizing too much from his personal upbringing in suburban Ohio.[10][11][12][13] Jared Yates Sexton of Salon criticized Vance for his "damaging rhetoric" and for endorsing policies used to "gut the poor". He argues that Vance "totally discounts the role racism played in the white working class's opposition to President Obama."[14] Sarah Jones of The New Republic mocked Vance as "the false prophet of Blue America," dismissing him as "a flawed guide to this world" and the book as little more than "a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class."[11] Historian Bob Hutton wrote in Jacobin that Vance's argument relied on circular logic and eugenics, ignored existing scholarship on Appalachian poverty, and was "primarily a work of self-congratulation."[10] Sarah Smarsh with The Guardian noted that "most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia" and called into question Vance's generalizations about the white working class from his personal upbringing.[12]
The New York Times wrote that Vance's direct confrontation of a social taboo is admirable regardless of whether the reader agrees with his conclusions. The newspaper writes that Vance's subject is despair, and his argument is more generous in that it blames fatalism and learned helplessness rather than indolence.[1]
A 2017 Brookings Institution report noted that, "J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy became a national bestseller for its raw, emotional portrait of growing up in and eventually out of a poor rural community riddled by drug addiction and instability." Vance's account anecdotally confirmed the report's conclusion that family stability is essential to upward mobility.[15]
The book provoked a response in the form of an anthology, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll. The essays in the volume criticize Vance for making broad generalizations and reproducing myths about poverty.[13]
A key reason for Hillbilly Elegy's widespread popularity following its publication in 2016 was its role in explaining Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican Party.[16] In particular, it purported to explain why white working class voters became attracted to Trump as a political leader.[17] Vance himself offered commentary on how his book provides perspective on why a voter from the "hillbilly" demographic would support Trump.[18] Although he does not mention Trump in the book, Vance openly criticized the now-former president while discussing his memoir in interviews following its release.[19] However, Vance walked these comments back when he joined the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Ohio and now openly embraces Trumpism.[20][21]
