Trump's running mate JD Vance’s rise began with a bestselling memoir

At the heart of JD Vance’s swift journey from venture capitalist to vice presidential candidate is a memoir he first thought of in law school, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Vance’s bestseller about his roots in rural Kentucky and blue-collar Ohio made him a national celebrity soon after its publication in the summer of 2016, and became a cultural talking point after Donald Trump’s stunning victory that November.