The stories we tell: Why JD Vance’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ resonates so strongly in today’s America 

As a novelist, it’s my belief and experience that stories are the most — maybe the only — effective way to move people.  

At every juncture in our lives, we seek narratives to explain and comfort and celebrate. We bond through shared stories, choose friends and spouses and jobs and places to live based on the stories we’re able to build around those things. It’s not hyperbolic to say narrative is the framework upon which we construct what we think of as ourselves, and the very way we make sense of the world.