GOP vice presidential pick Vance revisits Appalachian roots as bitter divide over memoir lingers

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Newly minted vice presidential nominee JD Vance built his Wednesday night speech to the Republican National Convention around his own Appalachian roots, but it wasn’t the first time he had shared his personal story.

Long before he was a U.S. senator from Ohio, Vance rose to prominence on the wings of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a bestselling memoir that many thought captured the essence of Donald Trump’s political resonance in a rural white America ravaged by joblessness, opioid addiction and poverty.