 Middletown is a small industrial city 45 minutes north of Cincinnati where Vance grew up. The Steel Town figures prominently in his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. That controversial bestseller brought Vance national recognition and was hailed as an exploration of the woes of white, working-class voters. But critics of the book said it painted places like Middletown with a broad brush when it came to drug abuse, poverty, and other social ills. Vance's appearance here comes a week after former President Donald Trump