Karen Swallow Prior is an author and professor of English at Liberty University. She’s written several books, including her latest, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, in which she argues that understanding the moral framework of a novel is the key to reading it well.

While sitting in her favorite reading spot, Prior spoke with the Washington Examiner about the role of virtue in literature and how reading fiction can be an unexpected antidote for our fractured national discourse. The following interview has been edited for clarity.