Australia, insurance, car, home, live, holidays

J.D. Vance,a California venture capitalist,is planning to move to Ohio to run a small non-profit organisation.Credit:The Washington Post

The memoir describes the plight of poor,angry white Americans in Appalachia and the Rust Belt,a tinderbox of resentment that ignited national politics. With an initial printing of 10,000,it has sold more than 500,000 copies in hardcover and 280,000 digital and audio editions in the US,according to HarperCollins.

CNN hired Vance as a paid commentator. He has become a regular contributor toThe New York Times opinion page. He's in high demand as a lecturer. The Trump whisperer,they call him. Also,J.D.,the Rust Belt anger translator.

<i>Hillbilly Elegy:A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis</i>by J.D. Vance. — *Hillbilly Elegy:A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis* by J.D. Vance.

Vance and his family – his mother and sister and whichever man his mother was with at the moment – moved constantly,chaos their credo,until,as a teenager,he'd had enough. In high school,he chose to live with his beloved maternal grandmother,Mamaw,a profanity-spewing hill woman –"a violent nondrunk,"he calls her – with an unwavering belief that her grandson could do anything.

Vance is a conservative Republican.

"It's very interesting,right?"he says of political presumption."It seems an indictment of the Republican Party that if you talk about issues of poverty and upward mobility,people assume you're a Democrat. This country is segregated by race,geography and income in a way that it hasn't been in a very,very long time.

"The person in New York is showing too little empathy for the Trump voter. The Trump voter is showing too little empathy for the person who's very worried about the refugee ban. They're not spending enough time with each other to have a meaningful conversation."

For the record,Vance is not a Trump fan. Trump,he says,"ran an angry,very adversarial campaign that in tone matched the frustrations of the people I wrote about. He certainly ran a pretty cynical campaign,and got a lot of votes from people who are feeling cynical about the future."Vance voted for independent candidate Evan McMullin.

Vance lives in San Francisco – the antithesis of his home town of Middletown – where he works as a principal in an investment group. But he and his wife,Usha,are moving to Columbus,Ohio. There,he plans to run a small non-profit organisation"to work on battling the opioid crisis and bringing durable capital to the region",he says."I never wanted to be a public intellectual or a talking head. I actually care about solving some of these things."

Vance believed early on that Trump would be the Republican nominee. He didn't think that he'd be elected president,though. When he was,Vance became the moment's prized talking head. The day after the election,"from 6 am until around 11.30 pm,I was on television effectively constantly,this idiot with a book".

People often ask Vance whether his return to Ohio is part of some grander plan,perhaps running for political office? He's already famous,at ease on television and speaking at Manhattan fundraisers without notes.

"I'm not going to say that I'm never going to run. I'm certainly interested in public service over the long term. But it sort of bothers me,the presumption at the age of 32,that if someone is saying interesting things,and has interesting insights,why isn't he running for office."

He thinks there are other ways to contribute."I think running a small nonprofit to work on the opioid crisis and bring interesting new businesses to the so-called Rust Belt – all of these things are valuable,if not more valuable,than running for office."

Hillbilly Elegy is published by HarperCollins at $32.99.

The Washington Post