DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance made a big promise during his nomination speech.
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JD VANCE: I promise you this. I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.
FOLKENFLIK: Vance considers Middletown, Ohio, and Jackson, Ky., his places of origin. For many Appalachian writers, however, Vance couldn't get the area more wrong with his best-selling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." As NPR's Clayton Kincade reports, they've been trying to counter the book's narrative with what they know as home.
CLAYTON KINCADE, BYLINE: Since former President Donald Trump named Vance his running mate last month, copies of "Hillbilly Elegy" have been flying off the shelves in the hundreds of thousands. But Vance and his book have been critiqued since it first published in 2016. Among the critics is Barbara Kingsolver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Demon Copperhead" and other novels such as "The Poisonwood Bible" and "The Bean Trees."
BARBARA KINGSOLVER: It used the same old victim-blaming trope. I got out of here. I went to Yale. I (laughter) - I disagree, and that's my job, is to tell a different story.
KINCADE: Kingsolver said that with "Demon Copperhead," she wanted to directly address some of the common misconceptions by the media.
KINGSOLVER: They think we're all white, and we're not. I wanted this to be the great Appalachian novel that puts our whole region in a context. We didn't choose to have poverty and low unemployment. We didn't ask for that.
KINCADE: Kingsolver loves hearing from readers who tell her that her story has genuinely changed their mind on Appalachia.
KINGSOLVER: We have heard from lots and lots and lots of people in other parts of the country, who said, this book asked me to reevaluate my prejudices, and I thank you for that.
KINCADE: Kingsolver is not the only one with an alternative narrative. In 2019, Meredith McCarroll and Anthony Harkins co-edited "Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds To 'Hillbilly Elegy'," a blend of scholarly, poetic and narrative rebuttals to Vance. For McCarroll, it is books like "Demon Copperhead" and others that will eventually come to define Appalachia.
MEREDITH MCCARROLL: What's so exciting is that there are so many really diverse, beautiful stories that are really offering complicated perspectives, and I don't feel like I have to stay mad at "Hillbilly Elegy." There's a long history of Appalachian literature, too.
KINCADE: Though "Hillbilly Elegy" might loom large once again, Appalachian authors, whether through fictional tales like "Demon Copperhead" or non-fiction deep dives, like "What You're Getting Wrong About Appalachia," are finding strength in their resistance and dissent.
Clayton Kincade, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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