Novelist Barbara Kingsolver grew up in Appalachia. She experienced anti-Hillbilly prejudice as a young woman. That’s makes her perfectly situated to comment on that fucking donut JD Vance, especially since both have written books about Appalachia.
Kingsolver recently sat for an interview with the Guardian. Here’s an extended quote from the Vance oriented portion of the article:
“I can tell you that Appalachian people felt betrayed by that book a long time before he became a Republican politician. I’ll begin by saying: anyone is entitled to write a memoir. That’s his story, fine. But for him to say that his story explains all of us – I say, no, I resent that, because it’s very condescending. There’s this subtext all the way through it that suggests we’re in a boat that’s sinking because we’re lazy, unambitious and uncreative, which I resent.”
The positive responses to the book, she believes, were born of the fact that it simply confirmed well-worn stereotypes. “I’ve dealt with this condescension, this anti-hillbilly bigotry for a lot of my life. I didn’t realise it was a problem until I left Kentucky and went to college [she went to university in Indiana] and people made fun of my accent, and said things like: ‘Look at you, you’re wearing shoes, ha ha!’” She pauses. “You know, it’s more insidious than that. Even as a writer, I feel like my whole life until Demon Copperhead [her Pulitzer prize-winning 2022 novel, which is set in modern Appalachia] I was snubbed because I’m rural, I’m from this place that’s considered backward. I’m quite used to it. But it [Vance’s book] really made a lot of us angry that this became the explanation for us.”
Her neighbours, she says, saw through him immediately: “The hollowness, the fact that he isn’t really one of us.” And perhaps this only increased her determination to write a book like Demon Copperhead, which tackles head on the agonising effects of the opioid crisis in Appalachia: “We have to talk about history. This was done to us. This region has been treated as a kind of internal colony exploited by the outside. It was just so personal for him [Vance]. There was no analysis, and no compassion. It was just: if I can survive, anyone can survive.”
I didn’t expect to write this much about JD Vance after he was selected as Trump’s running mate. He’s an unexpectedly interesting figure because he’s spent his life recreating himself on the fly. Podcast Vance is a cartoon villain, but he remade himself yet again during the Veep debate. The MSM bought his reasonable guy shtick because they’re terminally shallow. In contrast, JD Vance contains multitudes. He’s like a slicker George Santos or Tom Ripley. I doubt the Talented Mr. Vance even knows himself.
One thing about that fucking donut JD Vance I *am* sure about: 2 years in the Senate does not make him qualified to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. When he was chosen by the Insult Comedian at the behest of his idiot sons, I wrote a post called Unfit Candidate Picks Unqualified Running Mate. Let’s supplement that title by declaring that fucking donut JD Vance unfit as well as unqualified.
The last word goes to Steve Earle:
UPDATE: Barbara Kingsolver lives in the area devastated by Hurricane Helene. I just saw this Facebook post: