Narrative in a United States survey course is hard to avoid. The question that the author has confronted in his classes is simple: do narratives still work in the surveys now that students understand their subjectivity, in many cases, as much as their teachers? Students, like most humans, tend to like stories. As the humanities at large and history in particular struggle with the issue of declining student interest in these fields, so much so that many people view the humanities as currently in "crisis," it seems like telling stories in class should not be something to should give up on too quickly. One of the most recent and exciting ideas of how the survey can be improved revolves around the idea of "uncoverage." Lendol Calder, the pioneer of this approach, sees the sheer scope of the U.S. survey as its biggest problem. His solution, apparent in the name itself, is to deprioritize coverage, which he sees as the primary reason for much of the survey's pedagogical backwardness. Uncoverage, in its defense, is not an attack on historical literacy, per se, but the means by which it is pursued. Yet there were simply too many topics the author was struggling to omit. For this reason, the author wanted to stay with narratives broad enough to cover a wide range of important topics, but at the same time, needed some non-defunct pedagogical justification for this teaching decision. The case against big narratives was simply too strong. The author found a solution in the world of fiction. In some literary circles right now, narrative fiction is also facing criticism and much of it, for the survey teacher, should feel familiar. Narrative in fiction, however, unlike the U.S. surveys, has a host of spirited defenders. The slightest mention of the novel's demise has people lining up to defend its enduring appeal, including writers, of course, but also scientists, who have produced a plethora studies of late claiming to prove that fiction, including narrative fiction, can still do important intellectual work. If this debate is followed, paying special attention to the defense of narrative forms in modern circumstances, a new possibility emerges for how to make narrative work in the survey, even in the post-truth age.