be at the national book festival and we will be covering him lie. here's author jd vance, "hillbilly elegy". ♪ ♪ >> this week on q&a, author jd vance discusses his beth selling

book, "hillbilly elegy. >> do you have any idea when he wrote this book that it would be a huge bestseller? >> guest: no, i did not expected to have the response that it had. >> host: why do you think it has? >> one, i think just the weird nature of the election has called people task what who are these white voters supporting donald trump for making waves, and second, a shuttle light on an area of the country because people are curious that they didn't know whole lot about. hopefully showed them about what folks in this region of the world are like, the good and the bad. >> host: where were you born? >> guest: i was born in middletown, ohio.

it was in between cincinnati and dayton, that was the most important impressive thing about it. i spent time in eastern kentucky because my graham prince i grew up with were appellation dice poor. they came from the coal country, worked in steel mills which is a story, and that area. >> host: can you paint a picture of middletown a jackson kentuc kentucky? >> guest: jackson has about 6000 people in it. impoverished, though. epidemic has really hit jackson hard, that's a big part of what's going on in this area. not a lot of people working. the coal jobs hit this area hard, it's a tough area to grow up and in middletown was in some ways supposed to be the economic savior and in many ways it was, it brought my grand parents to eastern kentucky and provided

them a good wage. problems they thought they were escaping presented themselves in ohio though too. you see a lot of the same problems from the family breakdown to the hair one epidemic to the joblessness that is characteristic of this area of the country. it's not quite as destitute because there is still a lot going on in southwestern ohio. folks are able to find decent jobs in the unemployment rate isn't quite as high. for folks like us is similar. a lot of the social hills that exist in ohio don't look that much different. >> host: yearbook "hillbilly elegy, are there hills there? >> guest: they are a lot bigger and jackson. jackson is in the heart of the appellation mount. middletown is just outside the appellation mount and was called the appellation plateau. if you been to cincinnati which is the closest big city, very

hilly, almost mountainous but not anything like that you hills of kentucky and tennessee. >> host: what your did you leave that area permanent? >> guest: i left in 2003. unlike a lot of kids i join the military, i enlisted in the marines right after we invaded iraq. i enlisted in april of 2003. i went to the marine corps and spent time in north carolina, did a tour in iraq, that was the engine that brought me out of were a grip. besides going back to visit family i have not lived there for more than a few months at a time. >> host: what years were you in the marine corps? >> guest: i did four years and i was at ohio university from oh

nine. i majored in political science and philosophy. >> host: what years where you yell lost to school? >> 2010 to may 2013. i had about nine months were because i graduated in late summer from ohio state i cannot start of the next term had started. those the biggest chunk of time i lived in middletown. i see my uncle. >> what your did you move to san francisco? >> 2015. about a year and half ago. >> host: what law firm are you in? >> guest: i'm an investor in san francisco. i practice law in d.c. i did regulatory work in d.c. and left for the technology world in san francisco. i ran a company for a short time and now invest in the firm. >> host: when did you get

married? >> guest: 2014. no kids. two large dogs. >> host: where's your mother? >> guest: my mom is in middleton, ohio. that's where most of my family us. >> host: has your mother read the book? >> guest: yes. it's not necessarily the most flattering comments the sort of thing that when mom and i talked about it for the first time it was a few weeks you and we talked about the story that was told. it was one of the best conversations i've had with her 15 years because it's hard from a to recognize the way that not just her life affected me and my sister, but the way her parents life affected her. when he grew up like this a grip guilty, you think that a lot of these things are your fault.

one thing i tried to do is put this in a multigenerational context to explain that the problems i had growing up were not all mom's fault. there are the inheritance of a family those is hard on hers was on me. >> host: how much did alkol play in your mother's life and drugs? >> guest: in mom's life alcohol wasn't as big of a story except her dad was an alcoholic. that impacted her in a lot of ways. he quit drinking around the time i was born. i think my grandpa is a perfect guy, never had a temper, never do anything bad but who's a mean drunk before is born. >> but drugs were big part of mom's life and our family story.

the world quantities for prescription narcotics and that dominated our lives in many different ways, is something i'm proud and happy to say that she has gotten under control and things are going well. but it's a story that's all too common where drugs move in and mess up the seamless in different ways. >> host: was a story about when she tried to commit suicide in the car? >> guest: this is when i was ten or 11. she recently lost her job i didn't know at the time but that was when she started to use drugs. her marriage is falling apart and we decided to move back close to middletown which is more than just a streetlight.

she crashed her car into a telephone pole what she said as she tried to commit suicide which is hard for us to hear and uis wonder what you could have done differently, i think you wonder that if your grown man or a ten or 11-year-old kid, you're always wondering what could i have done to make things better and that never leaves you. >> host: how old are you? >> guest: thirty-two. >> host: how old is your mother? to be 55. >> host: let's start with bob, who is bob? >> it. >> guest: bob was a stepfather, mom third husband. bob was actually my legal father, and still is. when i was five or six years old my biological father decided he

was going to give me up for adoption. he and i are close now so we connected, but bob, mom's husband at the time was a person who is there when my biological father wanted to give me up. he became my legal father. i took his name and became james david hamill which is not many many more. he was around for a couple of years but a lot of things were exposed to at that time he didn't stick around, he didn't become my dad. he became another guy who came into the picture and then left. >> host: who is chip? >> guest: ship is one of mom's boyfriend. she stay with chip for a while, live together for about a year and half of it say. he was a reasonable guy, he was

classic, worked as a police officer and had attitudes common in this area. i believe he had some connection to the cell because of his mannerisms and the way he conducted himself. he drank a lot, wasn't abusive toward me but the real story is that they would come and go out, not that they were bad guys in and of themselves. they were just not the folks that you could depend upon and that was the lesson we grew up with. >> host: who is steve? >> guest: see was the boyfriend who came after chip. a nice guy, my sister and i said we always want mom to marry steve because he was so good to us. after about a year, he was gone. >> host: who is matt? >> guest: matt was probably my favorite of all my stepdad's her mom's boyfriends. a younger guy, really good human

being, cared a lot about me and my sister. during the worst time of our lives which is when mom's addiction problem landed her in rehab, that was the person who took care of us. he checked in on us, which we have food to eat there were getting her homework done and going to school, there wasn't a significant adult present in our lives. but i still keep in contact. so, mama met broke up after a few years but he and i are close. he's doing well and i'm happy that were still in touch. >> host: can? >> guest: interesting might not be the right word. i was living with mom and matt and i came home one day a mom told me she was getting married and i figured she was getting married to matt. she was getting to married to a man named ken who is her boss. i never met him before. what i learned was she started a

relationship with ken and we be moving in with him. they been taking for about a week, i was moved from matt's house who i really like to can't house. ken was a nice guy, wasn't abusive, but was one of these people who would come into our lives and then go. >> host: how many times did your mom get married? >> guest: she's been married over the course of my life, five times over the course of her's. >> host: is she married now? >> guest: that's a good question, i believe the answer is no. >> host: what does she do for living? >> she works is i believe she takes care of elderly folks and works in various she's a home health nurse which is good for her because she's clean and working her. >> host: who is male mall. >> guest: she was a matriarch in the savior of my own life.

she was my mom's mom. it was common in these big eastern kentucky appellation families. her reach was may be broader than a lot of people's grandparents were. she was the person made sure that i had a safe and stable home when my mom can provide it. she made sure ahead exposure to life lessons and people i needed to have exposure to so i didn't completely fall through the cracks. she had 19 handguns for today. she cussed up a storm, she was this a very powerful and perceptive figure and made sure that i had again, exposure to the things i needed to have exposure to so i can have a good life on about grandpa? she was grandma's husband and

because of the drinking they are separated and it live in the same house, they never got divorced, they just and believe in it. so really, we just went through the revolving door of maternal partners. there was the one man in our life that we could depend on. when he died i stood up and said he was the best father anyone could ask for. for me and my sister he was the person who played that role in our lives. he fixed up a car or provided us more spending money. that was his role. he stood in for the father that my sister and i didn't have. tuesday's graph old guy from eastern kentucky and don't always fit in in southern ohio, definitely belong in eastern kentucky and so was this great guy. >> what is mountain dew mouth?

>> that is a term that people give to the dental problems that, need drink too much sugary soda. it's not something people like to talk about. people are unfairly stereotyped for having bad teeth, but it is true among the poor families, kids start have dental problems early because they're fed sugary soda long before they should be. i believe i was a baby when pepsi was put into my bottle. my grandma said, stop doing that. you will rot his teeth out. but a lot of didn't know what we're supposed to do, we didn't know the behaviors and attitudes we should have to prevent premature dental problems. it's not like people who put pepsi my bottle were bad people. they did not would have long-term health consequences. >> host: what's a hillbilly, what is an elegy?

>> guest: a hillbilly as someone who has a connection to appellation or south of ohio. either your family there or you're from there yourself. you have a kinship towards people in that region, it's a term that an outsider used it i would be very offended. in our family we use it as a term of endearment. when we said it's okay. analogy is a sad song or sad poem. so the book i call hillbilly elegy because in some ways it's a sad story of people who came from appellation, the lives that they have led maybe the optimism that my grandparents had when they're 15 or 20 years old, it hasn't panned out in their own

family life. years later their family has a lot of the problems they hope their family wouldn't have when they escaped from eastern kentucky. >> who named the book? >> guest: a combination of me in my publisher and agent. we talked a lot about. it's not something i was attached to it first. elegy is not a word i would've used a lot of my language grana. but the more i wrote the more i thought about what it meant, the more a recognized it was the story of my family. these hillbillies who came here in the sadness they characterize their lives. >> host: you know as you sit here talking about this book that there's something missing. were not getting what's in this book because why? there's language in this book that would remove the bark from the tree.

>> guest: it's full of colorful language because the people i grew up around use colorful language. every other cuss word under the sun. as someone once told me, your grandma has a mouth like a sailor, only worse. i don't try to hide that. that's how we spoke. what do you think your grandma and grandpa would think if they read this book and they're both deceased now? >> guest: i think they would love the book. and i tried to write a book that they would be proud of. grandma was open about the fact that there are problems. she is very perceptive, she recognized the people didn't like to talk about the problems so you don't want open up the family history and talk about the problems but she recommends

that impulse wasn't super wise. you had to talk about them to understand and fix them. the people have come up to me and said your grandma is a hero, your grandpa is a hero. your sister is a hero, i think that's what i wanted to accomplish in writing this book is that when you grope an environment like i did you need a lot of people to play a heroic role in your life to have a chance. luckily i have that. i have my grandma and grandpa, my aunt to my sister. this is the story of how they impact my life. >> host: where's your sister? she's in ohio. >> host: is she married? >> guest: in our own ways, i think we have each escape this statistic says that if you grew up in a home like this you shouldn't be able to live a happy life, you should be able to have an intact family or a decent steady job. and lindsay and i have both

overcome the. >> no amount of self-control could withstand a well played maternal criticism quote, your mama so fat that her has its own zip code. quote, your mom is such a hillbilly that her false teeth have cavities. or simply, your mama. what's that about? >> guest: family honor and loyalty are important when you grow up in a community like this. maybe because your poor kid and you don't have a lot of us to hang your hat on. we are taught from the stories to the way we are encouraged to never let an insult to your family or mother go unpunished. it was important for you to defend the family honor in your part of that family story. you had to play your part. the point of those is that their mild insults in this sort of thing where if you live in a corporate boardroom trying to have a successful 21st century

marriage it doesn't make a lot of sense to respond to insult with a hot temper, maybe with his surveillance, but when you grow up in a family like mine, your taught that's what you have to do. >> host: you're talking about bob and he was a walking hillbilly stereotype. half of his teeth rented a and the other half were back, brown and misshapen. consequence of a lifetime amount due conception a missed dental checkups. high school truck dropout who drove a truck for living. how many others were like that description of bob. >> not a lot that really fit and checked all these boxes. one of the things i try to write about this a lot of the stereotypes are totally fair. people are justifiably sensitive about being stereotyped as a dumb redneck, hopefully that's

not the picture that emerges. most people are not quite as extreme as bob. what i try to point out is a lot of these problems that we perceive as stereotypes don't exist and everybody, but they are there, the family chaos in the breakdown. they existed a disproportionate level and we have to be open about it if we want to change direction. >> host: you can walk through town or 30% of the young men work fewer than 20 hours a week and not one person aware of his own laziness. >> guest: the tough thing about the serious as most of the people who are out of work are trying to find a good job in trying to get ahead. they're applying, putting out resumes, talking to friends and family and have to recognize

they exist and can help her feel bad, on the other hand, is people in these communities who are not working and don't seem to care. they're not aware of it so the people who don't care that they're not working don't call themselves lazy. they will extol the virtues of hard work. and it's really tough, you see these people who are working hard and then you see those who are working hard trying to get ahead. both of those exist and if you live in a community like money see both sides of the coin. >> my sister and i still call them the chicken man. years later even mention how the city government ganged up critics inspires trademarked material. the zoning laws, they can kiss my ruby red, you know what. yes, that's right. the chicken man was a guy who

raise chickens just like folkestone where he came from. he was eastern kentucky transplant had chickens in the spec care, when one got older secured ring its net and cut it out for me. that's what people do. a lot of modern americans are re-creating that life. back then it was looked down upon. was one of the many ways my grandparents felt they were outsiders in this new southern ohio town. the eastern kentucky transplant and hillbillies are look down upon, those were the folks like them. then there were those in ohio who were not totally comfortable with the chicken man living into the community and having habits and attitudes that came with them. >> host: how often did you see people hungry growing up?

>> guest: hungry, not a lot. to not see a lot of extreme poverty, you saw sought a little bit in jackson, certainly the adults were aware of it. as a kid i was unaware people going hungry i remember people talking about it. even the poor people in those didn't have a lot of money were not so destitute they could afford food. might be a little worried about where the next meal will come from or how they might pay for, but not truly desperate hungry people. >> host: how many were poor? >> guest: that's hard to put an exact number. different people mean different things by poor. i would say probably one quarter of the population in middleton lived is not below the poverty line, pretty close to it, didn't have a ton of money, maybe worried about how they'll put close on the kids back or pay for school supplies and things

like that. definitely a good chunk of people who are poor were struggling to make it. >> you talk about religion, your own beliefs, your believer, not a believer, people around you were, give us some background and how religious is that area? >> it's religious and self identification. if u.s. people if they delphi's christians are not the say they're varied about. church attendance rates, people are not going to church as much. they will not have much connection to brick-and-mortar institution. as i read in the book, having connection to the church community and sense of social support a more pressure was important to me as their opportunities to do drugs and engage in self-destructive behaviors. having access to the church was

important and it worries me in these areas they see people who identify as christian but don't have a connection to a church. in many ways you not getting the benefits that come along with your faith if you are not engaging with it in that week to week way. >> host: what is the hillbilly highway? >> guest: its broad term it captures a lot of rows that brought people from eastern kentucky western virginia, tennessee into ohio, indiana, michigan, pennsylvania and so forth. broadly it's just a road, typically it's referred to as u.s. route 23. this is before the interstate system. the ran all the way through columbus. there was a ten of people who are driving around the highway moving permanently in search for

a better life for better wage. that's also a people got back home on the holidays. so hillbilly highway kazoo driving in these areas and see in eastern kentucky or tennessee license plates from michigan, indiana, and ohio because that's row people travel. >> was the difference in jackson and middleton, ohio. >> jackson is in southeastern kentucky called -- county. as the crow flies it hundred 10 miles. it's mostly because the mountains you can't drive that fast on. they're really hilly. you go up and down, it's difficult to get a good speed. it feels further away than it is.

you can make a good weekend trip but it takes well to get there. >> host: how do people gain the food stamp system? >> guest: this is something i saw the cashier, one way people gain the system is to buy large amounts of soto with food stamps and then sell it back with a cash discount. so they'll get cash benefit, sometimes a phone directly which is illegal but people still do. one thing i saw was people come in and buy a lot of food, a lot of soda with food stamps but then buy everything else on the separate check. so there may be not depending on the food stamps the way it was intended. what's interesting, it breeds a resentment. your neighbors because people

see folks who need this assistant and don't take advantage of the system and then they see people who do take advantage and so they gain some frustration and they gain frustration toward the government that they feel is that monitoring the benefits as well as they should. it's a feeling where people recognize assistance is needed but also feel ambivalent towards it. >> host: you said you had an epiphany is young boy, do you remember that? >> guest: i had a few epiphanies is young boy. one of those epiphanies is that i recognize that maybe all of the things that folks meaning the government was trying to do to help communities like mine, maybe the help wasn't going to the places it was needed. this is what i write about folks gaining the welfare system. you see the recognition that

some people are using the system well and some people are using the system as honestly as they should. >> you say a hated school, and i hated home more. when you talk about home what are you talking about? >> i'm talking about the home i had with my where we felt like we're cycling from one boyfriend place to the next. the reason i hated the home is because it was unstable and chaotic. a lot of fighting and domestic violence in one direction or another, but most of all i hated the instability and the feeling that i couldn't get safe and comfortable, is constantly moving. i could come home from school and find that you're moving to house you really like to one with a complete stranger that's what i disliked the most about

home. >> host: what did you hit about school? >> guest: in some ways i didn't see the point of it. there wasn't a clear connection between education opportunities. even the people who did well in school didn't necessarily make a lot out of themselves. he saw so many people not making her having good opportunities. it was hard to believe school mattered. partially because it's hard to go from a home where your unhappy to school where everything is sunshine and rainbows. the unhappiness you take with you at home, sometimes you get sick because you're stressed and worried, that just shapes the way you approach school and make you not happy to be at school. >> host: now that you have a four year degree from ohio state a law degree from yale, what you think of the schools he went to

in middletown ohio? >> i think they could do more to help poor kids. i don't think is primarily the problem of mine growing up. if you think about why wasn't doing well it's because so much was going on outside that is tough to focus. i like to see her elementary and high school focus more and recognizing the problems that existed in homes like my and try to anticipate those problems and counteract them. i'm also aware of the fact to know that a school cannot make up for the home life. the teachers that i had really did try hard. >> host: was the relationship between your grandmother and your mother? >> guest: it was close by attic. grandma wasn't afraid to share her opinion and wasn't afraid to

say that she disagreed with a lifestyle choice. i think she is mom's best friend but not always purely enabling. >> host: now that you live in san francisco and columbus, ohio, could you ever go back to the hill country live there? >> guest: i think that i could. it's hard to imagine going back to a rule place because the opportunities aren't there. that's why 70 people like me leave and stay away. not because they don't over they came from, it's still where i feel the most comfortable, it's just hard to imagine what job i do. a big part of the problem called brain drain isn't that they don't like their home anymore. but you have to have higher skill and higher wage jobs to support an economy that has law

school graduates. >> guest: you tell a story in the book but going back there and having someone ask if you go to yale and you dodged it. >> guest: yes, someone at the gas station asked me if i went to yell and i felt like i could identify as a traitor to my home and family, or i could be the southern ohio boy who belonged. i decided to be the boy who belonged. i said no i don't, but my girlfriend us. the reason i said that is it interesting and it creates certain conflicts in our minds, i like to this woman because to tell her the truth i would've felt like a traitor. so i don't want to go over the fact that when he go to place like you you become culturally alienated from the home you grew up around but think it's possible to maintain your roots and maintain a connection to where you came from.

>> one thing missing from your book his pictures. why no photos? are there any available? >> guest: there are some available. i'm working on getting a website up. something that just in. i wonder why we didn't decide to stick a few photos and, maybe my father maybe just not thinking people wanted to see the photos. people identify so strongly with these characters especially with grandma that i wish they knew what she look like. it's something i'm working on. so please hang in there i like to get some photos on the website soon. >> host: what is hillbilly justice? that's one offense that there are certain wrongs in the world, but it's a combination and feeling that you don't need the

law to snuff those things out. you should take care business yourself. my grandma told me the story of a man accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in jackson. they found him face down in a local river was 16 bullet holes in his back. the local paper the next day ran a short story and said mount found dead with 16 bottles in your back, you expect fall play had something to do with it. people would laugh at it. she wasn't bothered by it she said fall play, -- got to him, that's what you do when somebody wrongs your family, you take care of yourself. something we're proud of. >> host: what's your story of your grandma at age 12 coming close to killing somebody? >> guest: somebody was trying to steal the family's cow. i for this legend reported to

me. grandma one aside, sought happening in progress and grabbed a rifle and shot one of the men trying to steal the family cow. the other man drove away leaving his comrade bleeding on this family's farm and grandma went up to and wanted to finish the guy off and wanted to raise the rifle and kill the guy and her older brother impress upon her that she should not to that. what a face legal consequences. but grandma felt so passionately that was wrong for the poor to steal from one another. she thought it was the ultimate moral sin. at 12 years old she was not afraid to take care of it herself. >> host: you said she was a violent non- drunken grandpa was a violen nonviolent trunk. who is the violent one among the grandparents? >> guest: i think both could be but i think grandma was definitely more violent and

grandpa had a troubling story, my grandpa had gotten drunk and grandma said if you ever come home drunk again i'm going to kill you. couple weeks later he came home drunk, passed out on the couch and she poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. my aunt sprang into action and prevented him from suffering consequences but grandma was not the take it down, take elaine down type. that exacerbated the violence in the home made things worse, it's funny or troubling, stalking about my mom and she said you really get one of the details wrong and i thought oh no, there's some mistake my book. she said as i remember, it wasn't gasoline, as lighter fluid. and i thought will that the detail i'm okay with messing it

up. it doesn't change the nature of the story. goes to show how stuff like that happened in their home. >> host: you talk to your sister, lindsay be an attracti attractive. where does she get that in the family? is that your mother, your grandmother? do you know? >> guest: i think a lot of the women are family are beautiful. if you look at old photos of our grandma and her days she was beautiful. i think lindsay got it from all sides from her mom and her dad. she is a beautiful young girl. go back to this family honor and family pride and is proud of her for being smart and beautiful. >> host: how much education to the people of middletown or jackson and your family have? >> guest: i'm the only person to get for your degree.

my uncle got a four year degree but later in life, he works for adult education class, that's uncle jimmy. he and i are the only ones with significant college education. my mom might have an associates degree in nursing. i'm the only person i know who has a graduate degree. >> host: when did you first get the idea to write the book? >> guest: is a third-year law student. i was bothered by the question of why there weren't more kids like me. why i was maybe one of the only working white poor kid with connection to this region of the country. i was wondering why is it i'm so unique and i wanted to ask that question and answer it. >> what did you do about it?

>> host: this is published by harper, and is number two on the bestseller list,. >> guest: is funny, to come together in the serendipitous way that i do not expect to happen, amy was an author of a couple of famous books. she said it's an interesting story near making interesting arguments you should think of publishing a book. and i said i'll think about it. i'll just write it and not worry about if it's can get published. a few months later she connected me with some friends in the publishing industry and one thing led to another and i had a book deal. that's how it happened. she connected me with three people, those people made sure had a book to and i was able to publish the book and hopefully publish it well.

things have gone well so far. >> to several years ago she talked about her international book and then she was author that was so successful. when you showed up at yell, your spending a couple hundred thousand dollars for your logically, what happened. the financial aid's office said i was getting tens of thousands of dollars in need-based aid, that means grants for the kids who are not wealthy. i receive the maximum amount is one of the poor kids in my class. tell my aunt that the first time i sport paid so well. these universities try hard to track pork kids. they sent recruiters,'s just hard to pierce that expectation that i had even as a relatively well-educated guy who had gotten into yell, i had no idea it be

so cheap for me to go there. i expected i would take a 200,000-dollar loan. but at the end of the day i incurred less debt than my peers because i came from a family that didn't have money. >> host: how many jobs did you have to have when he went to ohio state? >> guest: had a few jobs at one point i had three jobs at one point. i don't want to incur a lot of debt. this is before the new g.i. bill, living expenses were high and i wanted to have spending money. in the marine corps a got used to not worrying about money. like not worried about if i could go out have a beer with friends. so i worked a lot. i jobs i was lucky to have. it was hard. you dump working a don't have time to spend on studies were sleeping.

>> host: what was your grade point average out of ohio state? >> it was around four-point oh. i did well. i definitely did well at ohio state and tried. i realized partially thanks to my grandparents in the marine corps that this is my one shot. five wanted to have good opportunities i needed to do well. i studied hard and do well there. >> host: a four-point oh. >> guest: it was maybe a 3.95. i don't remember perfectly. i remember maybe i got one be. >> host: how did you get into gail? a combination of lock i may be a good score, you have to take the law school admission test which people abbreviate. i did well enough and had good

grades, maybe the admissions committee felt something. maybe the marine corps background. i have no idea. i didn't even apply to yellow harvard because i thought there's no chance i would get in. only apply to those on the encouragement of a friend. . .

she was very apologetic and asked me to take a ride with her and said we would have a fun day. she lost her temper, spent a fast car and told me she was going to crash the car and kill us both. i was pretty scared maybe 11 or 12, so what i did for reasons i don't understand looking back but i took off my seatbelt and hopped in the back. she pulled over the car and as soon as she did i took the opportunity and bolted and i remember we were in a rural part of ohio because i ran through a field and off to the house and asked a woman to call the police and she did. the police came in about the time they came, she was arrested and that was obviously dramatic

to see her get arrested and have that experience in the first place and maybe the worst part of the whole experience is that advises the state of the child welfare bureaucracy that was invited into our lives in a way that was very uncomfortable and ultimately a i he regretted a great deal. c-span: did anybody in your life not like this book? >> guest: no one has told me they don't like the book. i think everybody from eastern kentucky or southern ohio they recognize both the good and the bad in this book and sometimes in themselves. what i've been grateful for and appreciate is the folks that have said thank you for portraying us in a positive but an honest light for being honest about the problems and compassionate about them, so it reinforces my belief that there is a real hope that we can talk about these problems openly in

our community. like i said in the hopes that eventually we will be able to change direction and make things better. c-span: sometimes by a few members of the elite with an almost primal scorn. recently an acquaintance used the word in a sentence and i just wanted to scream. what do you consider to be elite? >> guest: one of the cultural dispositions, so typically, you're eating at certain restaurants, reading certain books, have certain habits. obviously there is an element of wealth and income and delete credentials. the last thing i will say is there's an important there is an important part of geography so if i can sum up that deletes its the belief that people with good credentials and the jobs who live in areas that are disconnected from the people i grew up around. c-span: how do you view government? >> guest: it's pretty

complicated. i'm relatively a conservative guy and i believe the government has a role to play in addressing some of these problems. i'm not the sort of guy that thinks we should do away with all government assistance to the poor but i also respect and understand the government activity can harm some of these communities and create negativity that has to be overcome on the one hand and number two it also tries to address problems without appreciating and understanding the nature of the problem, so i'd like to see the government think a little bit harder about how we can teach over income kids how to interact better. that's something that's talked about because we think the problems in terms of economics and income, but i do view the government may be suspiciously but ultimately as an entity that has to have a role in addressing the problems. c-span: have you been back to middletown high school to talk

about your life in this book? >> guest: not since the book has come out. i had some contact with administrators and hopefully i will get to go back soon. c-span: what would you tell a young person that had the same experience that you had how do you get out and go to ohio state and yale law school? >> guest: why would tell them first of all is they have to strike a delicate balance and it's one that is hard to strike. you have to recognize life is unfair in a lot of ways and your community will teach you life is unfair in a lot of different ways but you have to see this unfairness and also recognize that with hard work and support from your family you can overcome if so what i always tell kids that grow up in is similar to mine is never given to this until you have control. life isn't fair but that doesn't mean you can give up on yourself because that is the worst of all possible worlds. but how do you get to yale and

to have a nice job and all these things? at the end of the day, what you need to do is work really hard. you need to find people, find mentors who are going to support you and guide you through certain unfamiliar territories and unfamiliar networks. but you have to be lucky in some ways and that is one of the things i try to impress upon people in the book. this isn't a problem that can be solved entirely by personal agency. i am not the kind of guy that says i'm going to work hard and make it. i had a lot of help along the way. and what i hope is we can take constructively how to get more kids the same sort of assistance i had. >> host: the chapter about your wife, where did you meet her? >> guest: f. law school. she's from california to the daughter of a emigrants culturally it's about as different for me as it could be that way above about her is the same values that i admired in

people in her family, a her love of country, faith and hard work and most of all just a recognition that it's not what kind of job you have or where you go to school that gives you value but it's how you treat people so i fit into her family pretty well. they are from indiana. c-span: you wrote for my entire life i had a resentment in the world. i was mad at my mother and father, matter that i rode the bus to school while other kids got a ride with friends, mad that my clothes didn't come from abercrombie and my grandfather died, mad we lived in a small house. that resentment didn't vanish in an instant but as i stood and surveyed the war-torn nation, school without running water and overjoyed boy you had to give in and eat research you i begin to appreciate how lucky i was. what is this story?

>> guest: i was in iraq and during the mission we went to go do some assistance to a local school i remember we were given some school supplies to pass out to kids and i gave anti-razor to a boy he grabbed it from me and smiled so big and held it like a trophy and ran back to his family and i remember thinking looking around at the environment and his wife that he had it a lot worse than i did and when you grow up in this environment and community like i did, it's very easy to believe that the deck is stacked against you and easy to be presentable to all of the things you don't have. in that moment i realized i'm actually pretty lucky and i should start living like i appreciate all the good things my parents did for me instead of being resentful in all of the and all of the things i didn't have growing up. c-span: what is successful on this list comes from being triggered. what was his? >> guest: i think maybe donald

trump may have helped things a little bit. there was i think a broad recognition that people want to understand this group of voters that are disproportionately going for him. c-span: but who has an interest in this book? >> guest: the best help i got was from the american conservative that said he published first in very kind review of the book in his magazine and then published a long interview i did on his blog and it gave me a sense to articulate what is the most important lesson from the book of poverty and inequality are both structural and cultural problems. he was past the book by a friend and liked the book. he blogged about it first and then wrote a review and reached out to be. c-span: how many printings have you had? >> guest: 250,000 or so. c-span: how many did they print originally do you know?

and how soon did they know they had a hit and go back and printed again? >> guest: i don't know when they knew what it was after the interview was published on the american conservative and we all mobile realized that the demand for the buck is greater than we thought that it was going to be, so they went after the second and third printings right away and it was off to the races from their? >> guest: any intention of writing another one? >> guest: know that i didn't intend on this one so never say never. c-span: what has it done in your life? >> guest: i have a lot of strangers to know a lot about me that i didn't really want them to. i'm a very private person and i don't like telling the personal stories. in a lot of ways it is awkward for me to know that people know so much about me but i think the response to the book is sort of justified by the willingness and my ultimate forthrightness about my own personal history.

c-span: how can you call yourself a private person and write all of this? this stuff about your family? >> guest: the reason i say i'm a private person is because i was so uncomfortable with it and i didn't want to do it. i had to be pushed to be more honest and forthright. my wife, my publisher, my agent, everybody realized there were more stories to tell and i just had to go out and tell it. ultimately the bargain i struck with myself as i thought the book would help explain the problem and it needed to be explained. the price was i had to give it a little bit of privacy and and i thought maybe it's worth it. c-span: one last question must question in jackson kentucky and middletown. >> guest: it is above 98 or 99% and so definitely disproportionately white working class but not all. by the way, the picture on the cover of your book is called

hillbilly allah g. and comes from where? >> guest: i don't know it is a stock image the publisher used to put together the book cover so i don't know where it is exactly from. my guess is just just looking at it is from western carolina. c-span: thank you for joining us. >> guest: thank you for having me. ♪