Who is J.D. Vance? Hillbilly Elegy author’s wife, family, and career explored

James David Vance, aka J.D. Vance, is the author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, published on June 28, 2016. He is an American author, venture capitalist, and politician. Since 2023, he has been serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio.

The author was born on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio. In 2014, Vance married Usha Chilukuri Vance, his former classmate from law school.

J.D. Vance is a member of the Republican Party and the nominee for the position of vice president in the 2024 election. His book Hillbilly Elegy was the bestseller of 2016 and Netflix released a film based on his book with the same name in November 2020.

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More about the author of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance: Career and family details explored

Political career

J.D. Vance gained prominence with the publication of his memoir in 2016, which highlighted some crucial points that came to light during the Presidential elections of the same year. The memoir also contributed to the victory of Donald Trump as it touched upon the same topics as Trump’s manifesto.

Before 2020, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party were not on the same page as Vance was a vocal critic of Trump and called him "cultural heroin." But after that, he became a strong supporter of Trump and was nominated by him for the position of vice president in July 2024.

Some of Vance’s current political agendas include his support for increasing minimum wages, opposing the intervention of the U.S. Army to provide aid to Ukraine, strict rules for immigration policies, opposing the Respect for Marriage Act, and promoting the use of fossil fuel to save the environment.

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Personal life

Vance married his former classmate from the law school in 2014. The couple has three children and the family has been living in Cincinnati, Ohio, since 2019. Before moving to Cincinnati, they used to live in San Francisco.

J.D. Vance was raised in a conservative, evangelical Protestant family. By 2016, he started thinking about converting to Catholicism, and in 2019, he finally converted to Christianity at the Church at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati. He confirmed it during an interview with The American Conservative on August 11, 2019.

He also shared that Augustine of Hippo was his patron saint as he believed that Augustine's writings had helped him to shape his personal as well as political journey.

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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Hillbilly Elegy focused on the social and economic challenges faced by Vance’s community. These challenges included poverty, job loss, and instability. The memoir highlighted the struggle of Vance’s grandparents when they moved from Kentucky to Ohio in search of better opportunities.

Vance was brought up by his grandparents, especially by his grandmother, as his mom suffered from drug addiction and was not capable of taking good care of him. Even though they moved to Ohio for a better life, they suffered from alcoholism, physical abuse, and poor economic stability.

With the help of his grandma, Vance was able to attend Ohio State University and Yale Law School. Hillbilly Elegy also covered the poor working culture and criticized "hillbilly culture" for promoting it.

By sharing his personal experiences, he expressed how people with welfare assistance from the state took advantage of the system when he worked hard for the same thing. These examples reportedly depicted a bigger picture of why people in Appalachia moved from supporting the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

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Readers who enjoyed Vance's memoir can watch the movie Hillbilly Elegy on Netflix.