Summary

Part Two, “Hillbilly Elegy and the Racial Baggage of J.D Vance’s “Greater Appalachia” opens with a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the 1967 murder of Canadian filmmaker Hugh O’Connor, who was shot dead while filming a documentary film in Jeremiah, Kentucky. O’Connor was filming a coal miner in his rented cottage when Hobart Ison, the owner of the property, appeared and began shooting at the film crew – striking and killing O’Connor. A well-known figure in Jeremiah, Ison was difficult to prosecute as there was enormous community support for him; consequently, he plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and served only one year in prison.

Several years later, a Kentucky filmmaker named Elizabeth Barret created a documentary called Stranger with a Camera about the circumstances surrounding the murder that more broadly explored the impact of “poverty pictures…images of lurid...