J. D. Vance autobiography: finding faith in politics?

COMMUNION:
Finding My Way Back to Faith
By J.D. Vance
William Collins. 304 pages. £20
ISBN 978 0 008 846 633

Vice-President J.D.Vance is not an uncontroversial figure. His second book Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith is not an uncontroversial book. It has garnered a wealth of negative reviews on various websites, with some suggesting that political liberals have been keen to shoot down anything that holds up conservatism as a positive.

Even the image on the cover – Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Elk Creek, Virginia – is seen as being worthy of critique, perhaps not unfairly when the book purports to be about Vance finding his way to the Catholic faith. But in some ways, this mix of the Protestant and Catholic is what makes the book – and Vance himself – potentially, and politically, interesting.