On Friday, the national press reached a new low when the New Yorker published a scathing article about JD Vance’s late grandparents, causing controversy in the midst of the Republican vice presidential nominee’s campaign.
Despite their imperfections, Vance has often portrayed his “Mamaw” and “Papaw” as sources of inspiration in his bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Given their passing and lack of relevance to the current presidential race, one might assume they would be off-limits in political discourse.
However, this was proven wrong when the offensive article was released.
J. D. Vance’s grandparents, immortalized in “Hillbilly Elegy” as Mamaw and Papaw, had a deeply troubled marriage, and Vance praises them for sticking it out. But records show that they entered divorce proceedings twice. https://t.co/TjxxGvU5es
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) August 16, 2024
Here’s how the piece begins.
Last month, after I published an article about the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate J. D. Vance and his fixation on the traditional nuclear family, I received an e-mail from Donna Morel, an attorney in San Diego. Morel is a fact-checking hobbyist—notably, she exposed major fabrications in best-selling books by the late celebrity biographer C. David Heymann.
It’s astonishing that Vance is criticized for his “obsession” with the nuclear family, an institution that has been fundamental to societies throughout history.
It’s absurd to label him as strange for valuing something so integral to human civilization. The disdain from the far-left for traditional family structures is evident in such comments.
When Jessica Winter penned this article, she likely anticipated a bombshell revelation when confronted by this “fact-checking hobbyist.”
Perhaps Donna Morel’s investigative prowess would uncover significant inaccuracies in Vance’s book, providing ammunition for the Kamala Harris campaign in what is becoming an increasingly competitive presidential race.
However, all the “fact-checking hobbyist” managed to do was confirm Vance’s honesty.
The New Yorker has acknowledged that Vance openly discussed his grandfather’s struggles with alcoholism and his grandparents’ separation.
Bonnie and Jim’s marriage was, at times, deeply troubled—in Vance’s telling, both of his grandparents were violent, and Jim was a vicious drunk. But Vance praises them in his memoir and elsewhere for sticking it out. Later in the marriage, Vance writes in “Elegy,” they “separated and then reconciled, and although they continued to live in separate houses, they spent nearly every waking hour together.” (The relationship seems to have improved immensely, Vance observes, after Jim Vance quit drinking, in 1983.)
The New Yorker found no evidence to contradict that characterization, yet chose to present the situation as if a significant revelation had been discovered.
According to records sourced by Morel, Bonnie and Jim—Vance’s flawed but heroic avatars of traditional marriage—entered divorce proceedings twice. In the first instance, according to court documents and also an announcement in the March 22, 1955, edition of the Middletown Recorder, Bonnie, then twenty-one, filed for divorce from Jim on grounds of “extreme cruelty” and “gross neglect of duty.” Joseph Nigh, a family-law attorney in Columbus, Ohio, told me that “ ‘extreme cruelty’ is a broad spectrum,” and can encompass physical assault, verbal abuse, or “demeaning conduct.” “Gross neglect of duty” is even more of a catchall term, Nigh said, intended to be left to a court’s broad discretion. (Nigh spoke with me about Ohio family law as a general matter, and did not address the Vance case specifically.)
The divorce case, one of two during their marriage, was never completed and was eventually dismissed.
As Vance has always maintained, his grandparents remained together until the end.
People may have differing opinions about the wisdom of that choice, but many see value in the act of reconciliation.
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