Interest in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is soaring after the author and Senator was selected to be former President Trump’s vice presidential nominee.
The 2016 memoir from Vance became the number one and number two best-selling books on Amazon Tuesday, representing both the paperback and hardcover editions of the book. Making the rise more notable: Tuesday was also Amazon’s Prime Day, which it characterizes as one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
And the 2020 film adaptation, which was directed by Ron Howard and starred Amy Adams and Glenn Close, is also surging on Netflix.
Four years after it was released on the streaming platform, the film returned to the streamer’s top 10 list of U.S. movies Tuesday, where it appeared at the six spot.
Vance, 39, was selected by Trump on Monday to be his vice presidential nominee, ending a bake off that also included North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Senator Marco Rubio. Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022, where he represents Ohio.
His political evolution is notable. Howard, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 ahead of his election, said that he was “surprised by some of the positions [Vance has] taken and statements he’s made” after working with him on the film.
“I always knew he was conservative, but [he] struck me as a very center-right, a kind of a moderate thinker,” Howard added. “It was a family drama based on real events. There was a lot that I personally related to about the family dynamics, but also the region, the sensibility that I had long been looking for a way to express through a story. It ended with him at Yale and wasn’t ever meant to suggest that he was headed in the direction of politics.”