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[background noises] [background noises] lebron in the library of congress. all they hear at the library of congress national book festival we are at recognizing and celebrating the importance of reading and authors and books. the library of congress makes it seem easy to do this every year but the truth is the national book festival is a huge undertaking. it is a huge financial undertaking. and it has been been made possible for generous. support from our sponsor's you can see who they are in your program and on the video monitors around the

conventionon center. we cannot take for granted this will continue to exist. i would ask you to consider making a contribution right now using your cell phone. you can send a text to make it one time gift that will be added to your local phone bill. the details are on the screen and on the back of your program. andd as soon as you finish makig contribution, please silence your cell phone. andd now, onto the main event i like to introduce cochair of the national book festival david rubenstein. [applause] [applause] >> okay we are very honored today to have one of the best-selling office in the country with us today. a personn who wrote his first book and already on the near times bestseller list. how many have read the book? okay how many are going to read the book? okay how many people are going to go buy the book today?

okay. special guest is jddo vance will ask him to come up now. [applause] so, thank you very much for coming let me give people who may not know your background a little introduction. jd is it native of middletown, ohio. and a graduate of the middletown high school. he then went into the marines for four years, served in iraq. [applause] and came back, went to ohio state and finish it in two years.s. then went to yale law school and graduated there as a member of law journal clerked for a federal judge for a year, he is now in the investment world based in part in washington d.c.

he is married to a former classmate from yield law school who is here somewhere. or maybe on her way bringing his two -month-old son. if you see a two -month-old son somewhere that is his son. so let's start. surely we started to write this book in your wildest imagination you could not have thought you'd write a "new york times" bestseller on your first book or did w you? >> no, i certainly did not think i would. >> worked at the idea for the book come from? >> it actually started in law school and the genesis was is very interested in some of the concepts and the ideas that are right about in the book of the most specific of theth questionf upper mobility in the united states it. at yale we had to write basically a thesis by the end of her third year in order to graduate.rt i really wanted to write it about the legal policy implications of social mobility in the united states or the lack

thereof. the more i started to talk to the idea and the people that were advising me, the more and inefficient my primary advisor amy is a pretty successful author. she is the author of battle hymn of the tiger mother. she encouraged me more and more to bring my personal experiences to bear because she thought i could write something that was both helpfully intellectually interesting but also personally and emotionally powerful. and, as i continued to write the book i was a little resistant to thatdn at first i didn't like te idea of openingl up my personal life and telling these personal stories. but the more i wrote the more i realized to the degree i had a unique contribution it was that i understood these things from the inside as opposed to an academic. >> you have native writing a book. how long did it take you to write the book?

>> i was always working on a part-time. i always had another job was writing the book. it probably took me about two and half years. he started writing it towards the middle of 2013. and i finished for the end of 2015. >> is right in long hand or on the computer? was acted on my computer my hand writing is absolutely terrible. [laughter] bucks and so, if you are writing it did you have a publisher did you sell right up and get a publisher? >> this is interesting. in some ways it's simplifies the idea of the social capitol and how these social connections can have important benefits. so, because of amy when he started to really think about making this into a book project, she said okay let me introduce know inhese people i the publishing world. one of the people she introduced me too is a woman who became my agent and friend tina bennett. i quickly learned and you have an idea and somebody like tina really advocating for at the

publishing -- finding a publisher is relatively easy. that is sort of what happened with me. the hard part for me was getting into the agent publishing world. one toes it wasn't hard to find a publisher. >> and windst for same officers say it should not be as hard to write this book about halfway through they say how can i get out of this project? were you in that category to join to abandon it? >> yes it deafly did want to abandon if my wife as he or she could probably tell you how miserable i was about the 50% way through the writing process. for me, what was so tough was once i got about halfway through the book obviously it was too late to give up i could not stop writing it. but writing an additional 40 or 50000 word seems so imposing. in a realized then that i did not realize going into the project is probably hot 10 -- one ratio of words typed two words it made it into the final manuscript.

so i just did not realize what a long slog it would be until is about halfway through it. and i t definitely thought to myself would it be possible to get out of this? scripture publishes some confidence initial print run was 10,000. so 10,000 isn't 500,000 but 10,000 is good for first author. at what point when the book came out toen people say hey they're not enough copies that we have to put more? >> so this happened relatively quickly after the book cameou o. i want to say two or three weeks. maybe there is a book i did with the magazine the american conservative that went viral as they say online but make it worth sharing on twitter and facebook and so forth. and so i went to check my amazon ranking those who written a book will know your amazon ranking as a way to check in real time how your book is actually selling. there's a point in myhe life i s checking it incessantly probably

seven or eight seconds. i go to check my amazon ranking and it says book is out of stock. will ship in about a week. i realized then we don't have enough books out there. there is when they turn on the proverbial printer's progress how many of them printed? as i do not know how many total arm print for a no hard copies just under a million. little over a million if you count digital copies and audio copies as well. [applause] now the title very often authors don't come up with the title right away was that your idea for the title or wherere did it come from? >> it came through a conversatin with my agent. i really wanted the word hillbilly to be in the book title. the reason i wanted that word to be in the title as i thought it captured the particular cultural

subsegment is trying to write about. i also thought it captured this sort of interesting insider outsider dynamic that existed in my family or my grandma would say we are hillbilly's were allowed to college other hillbilly's if anyone else because you hillbilly up to punch them in the nose. it was this interesting word that it always had a real textured meeting as i grew up. i wanted that were to be in the title. it was something really had to take a while before iwi was one, comfortable with making "hillbilly elegy" that was tina's idea. there were a couple of reasons for that by. >> the book has become so well-known you are reasonably well-knownwi can you go to a restaurant without people asking for autographs or selfies or that has not become a problem met? what's it depends on i where i m at. so back in columbus i get noticed a pretty fair amount. i do notice sometimes in d.c.,

or in kentucky and ohio. but i was ina nashville a week r week and half ago. i di' not get noticed once there. >> the record there i think or something. >> that is right i think so. [laughter] what's up in the reaction in your family. the secrets people to want revealed about themselves everyone has family secrets but you seem to reveal every family secret. it was the reaction of your family to this? what's it did not reveal every family sick it. i had to keep material for second book. [laughter] but it is interesting. i am talking to my family about revealing something secrets. i think i haven't noticed there's been a slight tone shift from when i started to write the book to where it is now. i think the people were much more open about spilling the family history on the pages of a book that no one expected anyone to read.

i think now that we are at the number of copies he sold the people are talking b about the book there's more sensitivity. but some people definitely say it's in the family. we should not air the family's dirty laundry. some people appreciate itwo was important and worthwhile story to tell. some people come down a little in the middle. do any say how come i don't get royalties from this? maybe it will now since this is on c-span. let's talk about the book itself. i wrote it and enjoyed it a great deal. it's the success of two or three things. one is the writing style is very crisp, very clear. to the point not a lot of excess verbiage. second your personal story is extraordinary which is almost like a novel it's hard to believe it is true. and third the relationship

between what's goingar on in the country. let's go through each of these first. first the writing style. are you a gifted writer and incollege and law school? i wrote crisp clear writing cell? >> are definitely law school helped a lot in that regard. andd also you don't write with excess verbiage try to be clear, concise, direct but also engaging. but how to write as a lawyer and cut out the excess words was definitely helpful. some asked if i was a talented writer. always i don't think i'm a talented writer but it is funny there's an eighth grade biology i had to write. my family still is in eighth grade biography. they will pass it around oh, jd

was such a great writer even his 14 years old and my wife picks t the same thing and read it show got your families not being honest with you you are not that good in your 14 years old. so i don't know i do think law school helps there is a story to tell him the book the first big writing assignment i had in law school i handed it in i was pretty proud of it. the law school professor handed it back circled this that said it's a view asked him as a hetalented writer his say no. >> today at first but that's very successful normally publishers will go to the author and say you are ernest hemingway. you are great. let's have another book right away. the sooner you get it out the better. surely they are and figure to write another book are you thinking to write what now? >> semi thing about writing the book. i think i eventually will my view is it is not something i'm

trying to undertake tomorrow. so if i write another bucket will be a couple years from now. will you edited or change or go out at the same way? this will probably go out at the same way. i will liken to add a chapter to contextualize the political salience people haveau contribud to the book but i started writing this in 2013 i had no idea be attached to 2016 election in a pretty bizarre way. i would like to write a little bit about that because i have not talked a ton about that. otherwise the rest of the book will stay the same too. >> before the paperback comes out or maybe after the paperback comes back there is supposed to be a movie ron howard is producing a movie or directing as well, who is going to play you? [laughter] i do not know.

i wanted to be somebody's good looking but not so good looking people are disappointed when they actually meet me. [laughter] okay. the question i have real trouble meeting who fits into that not too warm not too cold category? a century of find somebody let's go to the second part of why it is successful which is your life story. for those who may not have read the book and i do not want to give every f weight everything n a big giveaway a fair bit maria born? >> the board in middletown, ohio southwestern ohio progress your biological mother and biological father were married at the time? >> they were. >> did they get divorced shortly thereafter? looks very shortly after maybe as a-year-old when they got divorced but before memory serves me because your biological mother was raising youu for your early years? >> corrected. >> did you have very close relationship with your maternal

grandfather and grandmother, correct whate was their name wt you call them? mama and pop out they were bonnie and jim. >> is at a hillbilly type word or unique to your family? >> it's definitely pretty, and the broader culture. it's not exclusive to hillbilly culture. it is definitely something people fromm that region of the country disproportionally call their grandparents. >> people might live in the east coast would say what is hillbilly about a higher but the center of the united states you might describe yourfr routes and your family roots are really from kentucky but you came to ohio and her family came to ohio. >> are part of a really massive migration from places like easternn kentucky, east tennessee, west virginia to the industrial midwest. if you know my family lived in southwestern ohio we traveled back to eastern kentucky a lot i

spent time with my grandparents spent a lot of my formative years in eastern kentucky always felt that was our real homeland. it's interesting it's a pretty common attitude there country music songs about this there's a lot of story similar to mine people were up in industrial midwest group in michigan or indiana or ohio for like the real home is back in west virginia because they put so much of their lives back in those places and that isil where the family is really from. if you are growing up you have a stepsister a full sister or fulr question democrats at sister. different dad say mom. >> both of you are being raised by your single mother? >> yes. >> how does she support yourself? >> mom, i remember became a nurse some time after -- me as eight or nine or so predicable he or she was a nurse. i write about in the books those are pretty good times economically were not struggling economically during the period

of our lives. before then i don't know. i think she worked odd jobs, my grandparent's help out a little bit and certainly one of the stories in the book is that after mom was no longer working inin nursing things are pretty tough for our family economically and i think more important they were tough and socially. socially. there are a lot of issues. was d male relationships with people who living with her by four or five or six different times. so wasn't that kind of disconnect hurting to you to see a different man a different man in the house all the time. >> it was an unstable childhood from the perspective of people coming in and out of our lives. i did not realize until i was older and what effect that was having on me i didn't like as a kid and i would befriend this guy or this guy was starting to become a father figure and all of a sudden he was out of our lives.

i knew that was common and a lot of my friends back home are going through a lot of the same things and none of them liked and i didn't appreciate the effect that it was having on me until i was older and look back on these friends.ev >> at some point you redevelop a relationship with her biological father and he went and lived while but that was not a pleasant experience as you thought it would be, is that correct. >> it was pleasant in the sense that he had his life together in living with my stepmom and they had a happy home life and in some ways i was looking for that and searching for the family stability in eighth-graders so when this happened. but i also realized i had become incredibly attached to my grandma because even when i was living with my mom as a kid and my sister and i were living with her mom as a kid we spent a ton of time with a parents and my mom struggled with problems and we spent more time with our grandparents. there is a realin weird moment where i was living with my dad

and i recognized he had a normal home as people understood it but i felt so desperate to get back to my grandma's house and live with her and that's eventually whatiz i did i don't think i realized until that moment that in myar own mind i had become my chief caretaker. >> you lived with her biological father it was it as a happy experience that you hope and then he moved in with the rich door. he was the person who took care of things he was the person the

major that we had all the things thatio kids need and he was an emotional support for me and my sister my grandmother. i always have a sense that if papaw was around things will be taken care of. he was always the person that was calm this when drama and he never lost his temper and flew off the handle but even mama she had a temper and papaw did not. i think it affected me in a number of different and negative ways but the way that it affected me most of all isft really what came after it. i understood as a kid that papaw was the glue that held the family together and i realized in a non- instinctive and obvious way when he was out there just what would happen. >> you lived with your mother for o a while but at one point e was violent with you and very difficult to deal with and she had a drug problem as you write

in the book, what was it like you encounter the book where the priest saved you from your mother, is that there. >> i think about the story a lo, because i wonder, i was 12 or 13 would happen and i always wondered if it wasn't as quite as dangerous as i remember. i think in part that's because i'm a lot closer to mom now and in some ways people try to remember things in a way that reflects fondly on people that they love and i certainly love my mom and were doing pretty well in a relationship now. i was terrified, i thought we were going to die and i thought mom was going to try to kill us in the car was traveling veryut fast and she certainly didn't seem stable so i got out of the car and ran and found this woman who called the police and the

police came andsh arrested mom d she was charged with, domestic violence. that was obviously pretty a traumatic moment there is no other way to cut it. >> after that happened did you live with the grandmother did you go live with her mother after the incident. >> for the time i lived in my grandmother. again i was always living with mama for weeks or months at a time even when things were going well. it was not that much of a departure from our normal routine but i went and lived with mama for a little while and then i moved back with mom but that was the way that things were with us. >> when you were growing up, when i was growing up i didn't have the experiences that you did but i wouldn't totally recall when i what happened when i was ten or nine how do you recall that in do you haveah documents how do you know these incidents are well.

>> i think this is were relying on your family really helps. a lot of the stuff i tried to cross-reference as much as possible with my aunt or sister or my mom, or my dad and what happened, here's the draft in the manuscript of this particular story what my leaving out, what am i missing and what did i not quite remember correctly. going back to how the family reacts in the book is one of the reasons they reacted well i tried to make them part of the writing process this was not just from my memory ontoo the make it a family memoir in that sense but as i said in the introduction. i'm sure that things aren't perfect but there's certainly how i remember them and i think they're pretty well documented as much as you can with what is primarily a memoir. >> you point out obviously that your grandmother died as well that must've beenli very traumac

for you living with her at the time when she died. >> i was in the marine corps this was a few months before i left for iraq in 2005. >> you graduated high school and you weree living with her. >> i lived with her for almost all of high school and left for the marines from her house. >> you were filling out applications for college? and you thought you could not afford college or you weren't sure you are ready what the reason you didn't go right out of high school? >> i did not feel ready i thought i had enough maturity at the time to recognize that this was my one real opportunity to have. anything in the way of a good job were a a good career. if i screw the college thing up that would be it me blowing my one t chance. because of that i did not want to take it for granted and i thought i was in a position as a person where if i went to college i felt like i would've taken advantage of it.

the cost part was definitely a a significant issue, it wasn't just the cost obviously i knew i would have to take out loans and we knew there were pell grants and things i could take advantage of but even with that i knew it would bet a significt amount of debt to incur but it was more the logistical side of it that made college seem so imposing. if you think about filling outut the financial aid paperwork what is your dad's annual income what is your dad's address. at that time i haven't spoken to my legal father in sixng or sevn years and finding the information would require a lot of detective work. there were pages to sign off on the massive loans and my grandma hadn't graduated from high school and me is seems really imposing and a little terrifying to go through this entires administrative process that nobody in my family had gone

through it i didn't feel comfortable doing it myself. >> you said all walked down the street and go to the marine recruiter. >> that the simple version of what happened.d. at that point there were six kids in my generation of grandchildren my two older cousins, my sister my two younger cousins of the 63 of us went to the marine corps and both of the older cousins had. i was encouraged pretty strongly by my cousin rachel who was in the marine corps, she said if you're worried about how you're going to pay for school and more importantly whether you're ready for college, you should join the marine corps thatw, will be gret for you you will get out of town see some stuff and financial independence and you should really think about doing the. >> you sign up for the marine corps, did your family tell you that was a good idea, your mother? >> it's definitely a patriotic community and family so people

were proud of me but they were not especially happy that i had chosen. i signed up in 2003 we had just invaded iraq and been involved in afghanistan for a little while and there was real apprehension justifiably so in joining the marine corps in what i was getting myself into, mama reacted negatively. in some ways she framed my decision to go to the marine corps instead of college almost as a betrayal you're leaving me to take care of myself you can get hurt and that was very hard but she didn't understand why i needed to do it. >> you went to basic training what was t that like. >> i was never afraid that i could get through maybe when i was in high school i was a little bit afraid of the physical demand and so forth but a drill instructor told me if you think the drill instructors are going to be mean to be nothing like the grandma of

yours. i really thought as long as i could physically cut the psychological part would be fun and i would be able to make it. that was true the marine corps boot camp is challenging but in a weird way it's fun stockholm syndrome i know a lot of marines enjoyed the marine corps boot camp experience and i was no different in that regard. >> your grandma was your book shows a colorful language, how did you avoid, she was never embarrassed to use those words? or you didn't say anything about it. >> i think my son is too young to show evidence of health towel my languages. i definitely try to cut back on the language relative to my grandma. she loved the dramatic and well played word. you go from mammals to the u.s. marine corps in the phrase curst

like a sailor doesn't come from nowhere in the part of the navy and i think i definitely had to scale back my language to operate in civil society but is engraved in me and i don't always succeed mccarran the marine corps you get through basic training and then you go to iraq, were you afraid you would come back in one piece where were you sure you would survive. >> i think anybody when they're about to deploy to iraq is worried if they'll come backr n one piece the thing to remember i had mos and military occupation specialty where we lost some people in my mos to combat deaths and injuries but it was not, i wasn't thinking as much of the danger as they would've been if i was working in infantry for example. i was worried but i also tried to talk myself up and recognize little be dangerous and

certainly more dangerous than driving down d the street but mt marines in the upcomingft back okay. >> for four years you leave for the military then you decide you want to go to college. you thought you were ready for but then you were four years older than many of your college friends, why did you decide to go to ohio state. not that it's not a great place but did you consider any other place? >> all my oc friends out there. >> etiquettes possible to make these decisions be more rational than they were pre-the reason i wanted to go to ohio state i grew to loving ohio state and a lot of my friends had gone there but i was not nearly as thoughtful about my college decision as i should've been. i had a greatre experience and m glad i went there but it was basically lock i found myself at

ohio state i was not thinking smartly as i i should've been. >> normally people go to college for four years and you went through ohio stated in two yea. how do you get through in two years?su >> you take a lot of classes and you go during the summer and you transfer credits that you gain during the marine corps over to ohio state those were enough to enable me to cut a couple years off. >> how did you support yourself where did the money come for ohio state did you have grants or the marine corps salary supplemented. >> i was no longer in the marine corps so i was not getting the salary. a little bit of savings. a little bit of debt that i incurred i borrowed some subsidized a loans. i had held grants at osu, i have the g.i. bill which i was trying to save for law school but i tried to use some of it during

college and i worked jobs during college so multiple different sources of income and off to get me through. >> you graduated in two years and then you decided you wanted to go to law school but as you point out there aren't as many people going to yell or harvard from ohio state, obviously some but how did you decide to go to yale law school as opposed ohio state law school or some other school the midwest? >> this is another thing i was not thinking super strategic strategically i apply to a few law schools and i got into them and i was thinking about going to one of those schools and one of my best friends who was a best man and my wedding he himself was a lawyer said yay good grades and you thank you can get into a good place, this is 2009 after the great recession and he's like i have friends from law school who are struggling to find work, you should try to get into the best

school thatur you can because that'll be your best insurance policy against unemployment so then i took off a little bit of time and reapplied and that's when i applied to yell. >> you are an average high school student but in college you did much better how did youu change from mediocre to average to a great student. >> i think the effort was putting it charitably in high school. a couple things. i was more mature person this is back to being ready for college in aat psychological way i still appreciated an opportunity as opposed to a responsibility and so many voices upon me. i tried harder paying forward and seeing the debt will went ue and up maybe gave me a fact that i was lucky to be able to go there but i also thought a lot about my grandma when i was in college. a woman who left school when she was 14 years old to come to ohio

and not many educational opportunities and she was super supersmart and i thought to myself if she could sacrifice all of those things to get me to a place like this, i should take advantage of it and i should try hard. >> you go to yale law school and is about the hardest law school to get into in the united states a small law school many people go there from harvard, yale. did you feel a little out of place when you got there there weren't that many people in your class from ohio state? >> i think in my year i was only ohio state grad at el. it was weird i realized there were high schools where there were more students from the high school s at yale law school that my university but it was definitely a culture shock and more than any place i had ever been more than the marine corps more than ohio state.

it was astonishing how different the expectation in the background from some of my classmates relative to where i came from. >> bill clinton came from arkansas went to yale law school from great state and so forth, did you say i'm a hillbilly from kentuckym and ohio in a really different but as good as you guys, how did you fit in? >> i don't know if i introduced myself and said i'm a hillbilly from ohio, how are you but that came through in the way i conducted myself. i was a strong ohio partisan even in undergrad and everyone inyo law school knew where i was from p but i don't know if i use those precise words. >> how did you do at el law school were you at the top, the middle, the bottom. >> i did okay, i don't think i was at the top, i think my wife

was at the top which is why she's the clerk of the chief justice i did not do as well as her, the weird thing about yale law school, they don't give traditional grades it's hard to know where you rank relative to your i peers. my sense i wasas doing fine i ws in at the bottom but i wasn't at the top and i was comfortable with that. >> you wrote your way onto the yale d law journal which is most procedures then you could do their did you decide you wanted to practice law or what did you decide. >> my wife and i had an opportunity to go to. >> you met your wife was she in the same class. >> where is she? >> is a wife you're s somewhere? >> i thought she was coming, where is she. there she is. [applause] okay. >> you met her, were you in the

same class. >> we had an opportunity to click on the issue for kentucky which both of our judges were in covington which is over the river from cincinnati so is a perfect opportunity to go and work for a federal judge, be close to home and work on things that were both interested in. >> you spent most of your lifetime and kentucky and then came back to kentucky for. >> i don't know if i was trying to escape kentucky with a chaotic world that a open, i was loved the place that i came from and always wanted to go back but it definitely was an exciting into goodyear we met really good people, sometimes people get stuck with bad judges but we work for great people and hadada great year. >> as i said at the beginning there were threeth reasons why people are successful very well written precise and a good read. secondly the life story is like

a novel so it's very interesting but the third one of the reasons the book is so popular because as you point out yourself the world has changed but now what you wrote about is one of the problems and we have a lot of drug abuse, opioid, unemployment typically in the midwest and a lot of people where you come from have these problems let's talk about that for a while in the opioid problem. when you were growing up he pointed out that drug abuse was a problem in your area and you think it's gotten worse. why do you think it's so bad? >> it was definitely something i saw growing up and i remember when addiction hit our family and i found out that mom was addicted to prescription pain pills, that's what we called them back then and i don't understand why people would be addicted to pain pills it was not common back in the

mid-90s. the problem had not gone mainstream as itt has now and in 2017 we talk about the opioid epidemic which is a nationwide crisis. i do feel that i got an early insight into what would become a crisis. why has it gotten worse there are attentive different reasons and explanations. one to be honest a lot of the drugsct were marketed as h nonaddictive and they were addictive and people got hooked on them and it caused a lot of problems. i think ever really significant over prescription problem in some of the areas, i was in southeastern ohio talking to folks who are dealing with this and they tell me that a high school kid used to hang out and get into the prince liquor cabinet or their parents beeren now they get into grandma's medicine cabinet and pass around drugs that's a different problem and i also think in some ways it's a consequence of really

negative social problems that exist. if you have domestic violence and a lot of family instability and unemployment then people find a way to deal with it, maybe 50 years ago they dealt with it with alcohol and now maybe much more addictive. >> you largely avoided the opioid problem and as i recall maybe use of marijuana but not really anything that addictive how did you avoid that in the environment. >> mama was cognitive of the problem of addiction and was really strict about the stuff. if she found out that we were smoking cigarettes or weed or anything to drink mama would fly off the handle. she appreciated how bad addiction could be in clearly had a role in her family and it really ruined her life for the

first 30 years of her marriage it was alcoholism and then ruining the life of one of her kids so i wasgh very much on gud almost obsessively i'm a person that doesn't like to take ibuprofen for a headache because i'm really uncomfortable with the idea of foreign substances in my body because i've seen addiction trap a lot of people. i got really sick at ohio state i had mono and they gave me the lauded because i had to take medicine. anyway i had the lauded and i was in the hospital at ohio state and i remember calling everyone in my family saying i know why mama didn't like us to take the stuff because it's fantastic. i remember being on guard about that stuff. >> you avoided alcohol? >> i've not avoided alcohol. i certainly haveer never felt tt i'd been addictedyo to alcohol,

when they ask you if the doctor i'm a once her twice a week type people but i've never felt especially addicted to anything except for chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. >> let's talk about employment many people left kentucky to go north and look for jobs but those jobs have been hollowed out so you see a lot about employment in your background can you describe it is getting better or worse and what can be donein about it. >> it certainly getting better in the past couple of years because economy has picked up a little bit. but i don't think it's improved significantly over where it was 30 or 40 years ago, what i mean the number of people in the coal or steele in the 1950s and 60s that has returned in thei past couple of years is not as bad as it was but i do thank you seen the long-term significant economic shift in some of these

areas and honestly i think policymakers were a little blind to and everybody thought that the economy would adjust and folks would getth different jobs and move into different professions but what is actually happening you see a lot of communities get decimated and that's one of the undercurrents of the book. what is there to do about it. there are a lot of different things that we could do about it, the first i think we have a significant problem with the fact that you're given a choice when you graduate from high school between working in the fast-food job are going to getting a four-year college education and week should provide more pathways it's not surprising when those are the only two pathways that you see people going in those two directions but i also think that we have to think more constructively about regional economicic development. the way that this is gone on for the past ten or 20 years i offer

70 a tax credit to set up a restaurant my hometown, that's great restaurants are fantastic but that is not a long-term economic development that has abbott and some of these areas all levels of policy have to be thinking differently than they right now. >> somebody writes a book as successfuloual as yours and at e point somebody from the democratic national committee or the republican national committee or some political entity would say you're a o gret candidate to be a member of congress, governor, senator in baby something higher? have you ever thought about or been opportune to run for something?ia >> thank you. >> you would not preclude anything from happening. >> certainly not. when the progression iss exactly

right when you have a book that successful people from various political parties come to you and ask if you'd be interested int these things. >> do any of these people that have the job like these jobs? >> i don't think that i have. i've talked to a couple members of congress not about me running but certainly in this environment you actually enjoy whatnd you do and they say i lie working on policy but the problem is we don't do any of that. >> leaving aside whether you would run for something, the platform that you have is so great you can be a spokesman about alcoholism, unemployment, opioid addiction. our you going to make your career about talking about these issues or not be seen as a spokesman for these issues? >> i don't know if i want to be a spokesman for these issues but i certainly think now that i have the platform i might as

well do something with a productive other than talk about thee book. there are other issues worth talking about. i've tried to be a constructive participant in the policy debates during the healthcare reform debate as of a few months ago i went on capitol hill and tried to talk to folks about how it might affect the opioid crisis and might affect the people from back home. i try to be constructive as much as possible but we live in a nonconstructive time. i think that you have to be careful and smart and you have to recognize sometimes when you try to be careful and smart you're not actually being careful and smart. >> when you talk to members of congress or get involved do they just want a picture or your autograph in their book or do they listen to what do you say? >> it depends on the member in the staff members. i found generally speaking i

become more cynical about a political processge at large sie the book came out from talking to folks and spending time in the areas. i feel more optimistic about individual members and their staff. by and large people actually want to make a difference in care about the policy and what effect it will have. we happen to live in a a political. in a political time where it's really hard to translate interest in policy to constructive a a compliment speed back people might call themselves hillbillies or hillbilly culture, are they proud of your book for exposing some of the challenges or are they upset for exposing some of the challenges that they have. >> i think opinions differ. there are people that think i'm a trader and they hate my guts. there are people that think i've shed a light on important issues and they appreciate it. the thing that i hear most from

people back home when i talk about the book were here people when they run into me on the street is that they appreciate that the book has talked about the problems in a way that they feel like wasn't talked about before, nobody wrote the story from the inside and nobody talked about what it's like to grow up in a household with a lot of instability and addiction, what's it like to grow up in a household where you're worried about whether you can pay for college orr pay for more fundamental things. that's the part most gratifying but i also think it's a regionn that's large and diverse and you havela opinions that are probaby diverse as any large population. >> what is the mostsk frequent question you in the speaking circle in your contributor to cnn. what is the question that you get most frequently asked my audience about your book or

background? >> the question i get most frequently asked is probably how my family reacted to the book, that is something that people areas curious about and i asked tom my momd is doing in the answer to that she's doing really well. >> she gotno married no. >> she is living back home she's doing well she's been clean for a very long time and in some ways while mom might not be ready to play this role so i'm not going to foisted upon her but she's a really good example of what can happen when after five or six times you get knocked off the horse of addiction and back into relapse that is still possible to climb back out and find the right support and to make another go at it. that's something i really admire about mom she's incredibly tenacious. >> she now has a business project, jdd vance's mother. >> she does not.

>> what about your biological father, do you have contact with him. >> yes i just got a text message from them were so close and talk about a bit he's doing pretty well, he's a great guy and we most often talk about his grandson and that's what is most interested in astro about a imprint. >> you grew up largely with your sister, what is she doing now. >> my sister has three kids back home in middletown and is been married for 20 years or so and is doing well. what lindsay and i really wanted to accomplish and what we thought of success in our lives was to give our t kids the stability and the comfort in the sense of security that we did not have his kids.

she successfully did that for almost 20 years. her oldest kid is 18 and i've done that for three months. i'm hopeful i get there to. >> today do find that your friends from high school laugh at your jokes more than they did before, do they speak to you differently, how did the people that you grew up with now that you're so famous and wealthy. >> sometimes people ask me for money but that's not a common occurrence. there are definitely some peoplr who laugh louder at my jokes but my real friends do a not laugh louder. one of the really good things about having a successful book or what a successful book can do you definitely realize the people that are loyal no matter what and don't let you get too big for your britches. those are the people that i latch onto. >> leaving aside your potential political career right now you're not practicing law but

you're in the highest calling of mankind private equity and investing. why did you go into the venture-capital space, why did you choose to go into the area and doing it from a firm based here in living in ohio. >> that is right what i find interesting about what i'm doing right now. if it is done well it can create amazing new products and amazing new companies in amazing new jobs. one of the things i realized in law school and i came in it with avail behind my eyes that lifted. the people who frankly call the shots in our economic system are those figuring out whereth capil goes and when i realize that i

thought to myself i would like to be t a guy who is trying to figure out how to get capital to go into good places where you will do a lot of good in create a lot of value not just for investors but people on the receiving end. >> some people write a book, margaret mitchell, their first book is so successful that they have a hard time writing the second book they think it will be as big as the first book but you don't worry about the problem? >> i don't know that my first book was that good i don't know if any will be well or poorly, was certainly successful and i think i would be an idiot if i expect anything else. >> what you want to do with your life but say aye role model out of the backyard that you came out of an rightly or wrongly

you're a bit of a role model for people who come out of this background. as a role model do you feel more responsibly to live your life a you feel youdo should get back in a certain way, how has your life changed after this book? >> i definitely feel a certain responsibility when i go one tv to not make my entire community seemed like an idiot. what are the things that i've h not appreciated but accepted as reality is a lot of people see me as a spokesperson for the white working class and a lot of times i'm asked to go on tv and what does a trumpeter feel about this issue. i think that's unfair and i don't think any person should speak for that many people or the trumpeter at large but what i try to do is recognize that some people see me as a representative so i try not to sound like a totalth buffoon whn i go one tv that's one way things have changed but it's crazy. a year end a half ago i was not

sitting in front of hundreds of people read it's kind of impossible to describe how my life has changedge in the way tt any person's life changes when they go from sitting at home eating pints of ice cream and watch a netflix than to sit in the here in front of hundreds of people. >> the people of thehe united states that you simplify the voter that i appeal to or you haven't had that reaction. >> i've never heard that from president trump. i have heard people that work in the white house saying similar to that but no i've never gotten a phone call from president trump i'm still waiting. >> today you would say you're happy person you have a child, wife, mother and father are doing well you're very happy person today in the experience of the book has made your life better. >> you think things are going great the book has changed my life in a weird way but definitely a positive way.

>> i read the book i thought it was a great book and i highly recommend it to those who have not read it and those who read it once read it again i think it's instructive, well-written and i want to thank you for bringing into the conversation. >> if you're enjoying book tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the schedule of upcoming programs, other discussions, book festivals and more book tv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. televisi for serious readers. >> i shall resigned the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice president florida will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. >> president richard nixon resigned from office on

august 9, 1974 and saturday to mark the 50th anniversary american history tv will air 24 hours of programming focusing on the 37th president the watergate scandal and the key players in the nixon administration programs included discussion on the judiciary impeachment investigation at 12:45 p.m. eastern in at 3:30 p.m. eastern the july 8, 1974 supreme court oral arguments in the case of united states versus nixon focusing on executive privilege in at 6:30 p.m. eastern nixon's farewell to the white house staff. at 8:00 p.m. eastern president nixon's resignation address to the nation and throughout the day see discussion on richard nixon's legacy prehistoric newsreel footage from the white house and interviews with nixon administration staffersnd those who served and worked in congress a time. watch our special on the 50th it of her history and resignation of president richard nixon all day beginningday at 8:00 a.m. eastern on american

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