Two American societies, thousands of miles apart, but close in many ways.

Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead” is a retelling of Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” set in 1990s Appalachia. Ted Conover’s “Cheap Land Colorado” is a nonfiction portrait of off-gridders in the San Luis Valley. Both describe communities that feel disconnected from the rest of the nation.

While the Virginia families Kingsolver describes trace their lineage back centuries, Conover focuses on those who moved to the San Luis Valley more recently, typically trying to escape something (This group lives near but is distinct from the Hispano families whose Valley roots go back centuries).

For the characters in both books, money is extremely tight, with monthly budgets calculated in hundreds of dollars. Some subsist on government checks; others live off legal settlements from injuries.

Both areas became epicenters of the opioid epidemic because predatory pharmaceutical companies identified them as easy marks and flooded their communities with addictive prescription drugs.

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Meth, tobacco and alcohol also plague both places and violence, including domestic abuse, is common. Conflicts are often solved without involving the government or legal system.

Gun culture is strong.

Their economies operate largely under the radar, bartering labor and secondhand goods or maybe exchanging a few bills. Both areas cultivate cash crops – small patches of tobacco in Appalachia or off-the-books marijuana grows in the Valley.

Both cultures know others may look down on them, but they wear chips on their shoulders like well-earned medals.

They are distrustful of authority figures, which include school administrators, social workers, law enforcement, code inspectors and public health departments. Organized religion is not a unifying force.

Anyone who works in policy, politics, education, human services, public health or media would be wise to read these books and consider our views and biases.

And, though reading is a start, we also must literally and figuratively get off the highways and explore the dirt roads so we can at least begin to try to see the world through their eyes.

Just as we frankly acknowledge and examine the legacies of racism, we should also explore dynamics that cut across race and ethnicity. This includes generational poverty, lack of access to quality education, insufficient health care and economic opportunity, and cycles of addiction and trauma.

Both societies described by these books exist far from the major cities where journalists, politicians, government officials and academics gather.

When rural stories get the attention of urbanites like me, media coverage too often focuses on the quirky. These stories often perpetuate negative stereotypes or highlight otherness; some are the result of drive-by reporting that misses nuance or humanity.

Neither Kingsolver nor Conover can be accused of these sins. Both writers describe these people authentically because they have lived among them. They present them with empathy.

I read these books on comfortable summer beach vacations, so I’m not able to lecture anyone on fully understanding these communities. But both books reminded me it’s my responsibility to try – and to get outside of my small world.

These days the nation is mapped in stark shades of red and blue. In this construct, cities are usually blue and rural areas are categorized as red. It’s tempting to ignore areas we don’t understand or that cause us discomfort – and to paint broad areas with the same brush strokes.

Of course, the societies described in these books aren’t microcosms of rural America – they are just two unique communities within the wide diversity of rural America.

Oversimplification and shallow categorization perpetuate polarization that in turn can fuel cycles of conflict, making it harder to solve the nation’s pressing issues for the benefit of all of us.

Eric Anderson is a principal at SE2, a Colorado marketing and communications agency focused on policy and behavior change. He can be reached at Eric@SE2changeforgood.com.