What do you think?
Rate this book
The Antidote
From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town
The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 2025
1,057 people are currently reading
44.5k people want to read
About the author
Karen Russell
55 books3,067 followersKaren Russell graduated from Columbia University's MFA program in 2006. Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope. Her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was published in September 2006. In November 2009, she was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree. In June 2010, she was named a New Yorker "20 Under 40" honoree. Her first novel, Swamplandia!, was published in February 2011.
She lives in Washington Heights, New York.
She lives in Washington Heights, New York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 302 reviews
March 9, 2025
In 2011, Karen Russell cast a spell over readers with her uncanny debut novel, “Swamplandia!” She wasn’t kidding about that exclamation point. The story involves a plucky 13-year-old girl determined to revive her family’s alligator park.
“Swamplandia!” went on to become a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. That year, Russell’s novel was up against an unfinished manuscript by an author who’d died in 2008 and a revised version of a novella published in the Paris Review almost a decade earlier. Historically speaking, being above ground with a new, finished novel has been a great advantage when it comes to winning a Pulitzer. But, alas, that year, in its inscrutable wisdom, the Pulitzer board decided not to give a prize for fiction.
What might have been?
The question of possibilities both forgotten and denied snakes through Russell’s second novel, a tempest of a tale called “The Antidote.” Her signature conceits gather again in these pages — a determined girl, a tincture of wizardry, a slash of violence — but this story is dazzlingly original and ambitious. Hovering in the atmosphere somewhere between Colson Whitehead’s “Underground Railroad” and Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” “The Antidote” is a historical novel pumped full of just enough magic to make it rise without bursting the bubble of our credulity.
It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down,
We thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom.
So sang Woody Guthrie about the cataclysmal dust storm that struck on April 14, 1935. On Black Sunday, as the disaster has since been known, a blizzard of dirt churned across America’s desiccated plains, destroying farms, burying homes and plunging the nation further into economic depression.
“The Antidote” opens in the howling wind of that Black Sunday. One of the book’s narrators, Antonina, is locked in a jail cell in a Nebraska town called Uz. You don’t need to catch the allusion to Job’s homeland to know this is a place being severely tested. “I woke up,” Antonina says, “to a sound like a freight train tunneling through me. An earsplitting howl that seemed to shake the stone walls. My body trembled like a husk on the cot. My fingers clawed into the mattress. For those early moments in the dark I was nothing but the fear of....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
“Swamplandia!” went on to become a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. That year, Russell’s novel was up against an unfinished manuscript by an author who’d died in 2008 and a revised version of a novella published in the Paris Review almost a decade earlier. Historically speaking, being above ground with a new, finished novel has been a great advantage when it comes to winning a Pulitzer. But, alas, that year, in its inscrutable wisdom, the Pulitzer board decided not to give a prize for fiction.
What might have been?
The question of possibilities both forgotten and denied snakes through Russell’s second novel, a tempest of a tale called “The Antidote.” Her signature conceits gather again in these pages — a determined girl, a tincture of wizardry, a slash of violence — but this story is dazzlingly original and ambitious. Hovering in the atmosphere somewhere between Colson Whitehead’s “Underground Railroad” and Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” “The Antidote” is a historical novel pumped full of just enough magic to make it rise without bursting the bubble of our credulity.
It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down,
We thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom.
So sang Woody Guthrie about the cataclysmal dust storm that struck on April 14, 1935. On Black Sunday, as the disaster has since been known, a blizzard of dirt churned across America’s desiccated plains, destroying farms, burying homes and plunging the nation further into economic depression.
“The Antidote” opens in the howling wind of that Black Sunday. One of the book’s narrators, Antonina, is locked in a jail cell in a Nebraska town called Uz. You don’t need to catch the allusion to Job’s homeland to know this is a place being severely tested. “I woke up,” Antonina says, “to a sound like a freight train tunneling through me. An earsplitting howl that seemed to shake the stone walls. My body trembled like a husk on the cot. My fingers clawed into the mattress. For those early moments in the dark I was nothing but the fear of....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
October 14, 2024
Excuse me while I walk around for the next several months running into doorframes thinking about this book. Karen Russell is an extraordinary writer, and this novel is worth the wait. I have no idea how she pulled off this alchemy, but she somehow did: she not only managed to write a gorgeous book about the Dust Bowl, a string of brutal murders, a mysterious scarecrow, quantum photographs, basketball, and prairie witches who store your memories, but she also made it say something important about social justice, collective memory, and who exactly tells the story of “history.” I felt every emotion while reading this book. I wanted to start it again as soon as I finished it. If it isn’t on your TBR, add it immediately—I’m calling it now that this book will see major awards traction in 2025. Russell’s previous (and previously only) novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this one followed in that trajectory as well.
November 5, 2024
“There is no way to tell the truth without first revealing ourselves as liars.”
The Antidote is simply extraordinary. Propulsive. Timely and urgent. I finished it on the eve of the most consequential election of my lifetime, and by the time I finished, I was shaking and crying and cheering because of its powerful warnings and hopeful vision for the times we live in now. It’s an incredible, must-read book.
It opens in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, during the Dust Bowl drought. Anyone who has read Karan Russell knows that her novels are bound to have an overlay of fantastical realism, and this one is no exception. The book is filled with the perils and promises that face us and how our memories are the key to understanding where we came from and where we’re going.
The Antidote follows five characters, the most compelling of whom is the Prairie Witch aka the Vault, whose body acts like a bank vault for neighbors to deposit their most heinous memories. The result is a town of spellbound amnesiacs who have holes inside them where their memories once resided. There’s also a Polish wheat farmer who is the sole person whose farm has not been destroyed by the dust storm (not unlike the main character Kate Southwood’s excellent Falling to Earth). His orphaned niece is a basketball star and an apprentice to the Prairie Witch. Finally, we meet a scarecrow infused with human thought and a New Deal photographer whose camera, purchased at a pawn shop, sees things that are not there yet and things hidden in the town’s shameful history.
Within these pages, we discover stories of a murdered woman and a monstrous sheriff, an onerous Home for Unwed Mothers that will move even the hardest hearts, the injustice dealt to the Sioux Indians and the cult behavior of a town that wants to sweep all this under the rug. At the same time, the magical camera reveals the myriad possibilities of what could happen if we trust our greater angels and trust the land and nature to teach us how to see it.
Ultimately, this hopeful book focuses mainly on memory – memory lost, memory revealed, and new memories waiting to be created. The novel is an achingly profound and transformative book. I owe a deep debt to Knopf and NetGalley for enabling me to be an early reader of a novel that will surely take its place as one of my top books of 2025.
The Antidote is simply extraordinary. Propulsive. Timely and urgent. I finished it on the eve of the most consequential election of my lifetime, and by the time I finished, I was shaking and crying and cheering because of its powerful warnings and hopeful vision for the times we live in now. It’s an incredible, must-read book.
It opens in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, during the Dust Bowl drought. Anyone who has read Karan Russell knows that her novels are bound to have an overlay of fantastical realism, and this one is no exception. The book is filled with the perils and promises that face us and how our memories are the key to understanding where we came from and where we’re going.
The Antidote follows five characters, the most compelling of whom is the Prairie Witch aka the Vault, whose body acts like a bank vault for neighbors to deposit their most heinous memories. The result is a town of spellbound amnesiacs who have holes inside them where their memories once resided. There’s also a Polish wheat farmer who is the sole person whose farm has not been destroyed by the dust storm (not unlike the main character Kate Southwood’s excellent Falling to Earth). His orphaned niece is a basketball star and an apprentice to the Prairie Witch. Finally, we meet a scarecrow infused with human thought and a New Deal photographer whose camera, purchased at a pawn shop, sees things that are not there yet and things hidden in the town’s shameful history.
Within these pages, we discover stories of a murdered woman and a monstrous sheriff, an onerous Home for Unwed Mothers that will move even the hardest hearts, the injustice dealt to the Sioux Indians and the cult behavior of a town that wants to sweep all this under the rug. At the same time, the magical camera reveals the myriad possibilities of what could happen if we trust our greater angels and trust the land and nature to teach us how to see it.
Ultimately, this hopeful book focuses mainly on memory – memory lost, memory revealed, and new memories waiting to be created. The novel is an achingly profound and transformative book. I owe a deep debt to Knopf and NetGalley for enabling me to be an early reader of a novel that will surely take its place as one of my top books of 2025.
April 3, 2025
“What Zintka was telling me was not a tragic story but a triumphant one, or else it was both and neither, it was a great braid of times and tones, it was her very life pushing at the seams of what could be told as a story. I heard her strength, her life-wish, naming itself.”
When the Great American Novel meets quantum physics, you get a rush of storytelling that is indeed bursting at the seams, spilling out a cast of unforgettable Searchers all over the fields of western Nebraska in the grip of the Dust Bowl.
The American Experiment, at its core, was but a dizzying push to colonize free lands that were anything but free. A fevered desire to uproot the Other, in order to take root oneself. A maddening attempt at self-creation that got drunk on erasure and the utter impossibility of its own sense of innocence.
So Karen Russell broke the rules and brought in all the particles to play in one moment in time.
Entangled. Superposed. Tunneling.
In a doe-eyed high school basketball player shooting hoops in the dead of night.
In prairie witches known as Vaults, who swallow painful memories for a living and the birth of a clean slate.
In a New Deal black photographer whose pictures reveal far more than meets the eye.
In an old Polish immigrant coming to terms with his haunted fallow lands.
And a scarecrow.
All of them living repositories of a collective American unconscious yearning to break free.
All of them swooped up in Biblical dust and spit right back out in Apocalyptic rain.
A spellbound novel that channels the burning urgency of “The Vaster Wilds”, the idiosyncrasy of “North Woods”, the poetic restoration of “Wandering Stars”, the acuity of “James” and the singing sentences of “All The Light We Cannot See”.
A searing work of fiction that feels something like a trance, interconnected and transcendental.
When the Great American Novel meets quantum physics, you get a rush of storytelling that is indeed bursting at the seams, spilling out a cast of unforgettable Searchers all over the fields of western Nebraska in the grip of the Dust Bowl.
The American Experiment, at its core, was but a dizzying push to colonize free lands that were anything but free. A fevered desire to uproot the Other, in order to take root oneself. A maddening attempt at self-creation that got drunk on erasure and the utter impossibility of its own sense of innocence.
So Karen Russell broke the rules and brought in all the particles to play in one moment in time.
Entangled. Superposed. Tunneling.
In a doe-eyed high school basketball player shooting hoops in the dead of night.
In prairie witches known as Vaults, who swallow painful memories for a living and the birth of a clean slate.
In a New Deal black photographer whose pictures reveal far more than meets the eye.
In an old Polish immigrant coming to terms with his haunted fallow lands.
And a scarecrow.
All of them living repositories of a collective American unconscious yearning to break free.
All of them swooped up in Biblical dust and spit right back out in Apocalyptic rain.
A spellbound novel that channels the burning urgency of “The Vaster Wilds”, the idiosyncrasy of “North Woods”, the poetic restoration of “Wandering Stars”, the acuity of “James” and the singing sentences of “All The Light We Cannot See”.
A searing work of fiction that feels something like a trance, interconnected and transcendental.
November 26, 2024
When she was denied the Pulitzer despite being a finalist (in a year when that prize wasn't distributed at all), Karen Russell was unknown, young, but that was over ten years ago. With The Antidote, she firmly establishes her place at the forefront of American letters. She has created three powerhouse narrators (and others, but three major ones), to tell the story of the effects of United States colonialism practices and its ravages on land and people and ways of life. Each character is sharply delineated, each contributing to the story. And whereas there have been many books adding to the shameful history of the manifest destiny of the western expansion, I can't remember being as moved as I was by this one.
March 12, 2025
The Antidote is a sweeping tale that merges historical fiction with magical realism. The book begins with the devastating Black Sunday dust storm which devastated the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. A town that is already coping with the Great Depression and the Dust bowl. It is a bleak place where a "Prairie Witch" serves as a vault to people's memories and secrets. The other characters are made up of a Polish farmer and his niece, a new Deal photographer, a basketball player and witch's apprentice.
If you have read one of Karen Russel's books, you are familiar with her writing, her use of magical realism in her stories, and how her books evoke emotion and are thought-provoking. The Antidote utilizes the climate issues to touch on memory, forgetting whether willfully or not, consequences, history, nature, loss, learning, and possibilities.
This book is both slow moving and intriguing. While I struggle with slow books, I found that I was able to go with the flow of this one. This book has a strong social justice message. Some will enjoy this some might not. It will depend on what you enjoy in books. My favorite character was the "Prairie Witch”. I enjoyed her sections the most. What shines in this book is the author's writing.
Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
If you have read one of Karen Russel's books, you are familiar with her writing, her use of magical realism in her stories, and how her books evoke emotion and are thought-provoking. The Antidote utilizes the climate issues to touch on memory, forgetting whether willfully or not, consequences, history, nature, loss, learning, and possibilities.
This book is both slow moving and intriguing. While I struggle with slow books, I found that I was able to go with the flow of this one. This book has a strong social justice message. Some will enjoy this some might not. It will depend on what you enjoy in books. My favorite character was the "Prairie Witch”. I enjoyed her sections the most. What shines in this book is the author's writing.
Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
March 9, 2025
Rating: 3* of five
The Publisher Says: From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town
The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories.
The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities.
The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I cried "Uncle" at 64% because I just don't care anymore.
I read that, thought, "I couldn't agree more," and put the book down. I had steadily lost interest, which was a sadness since I really wanted this read to thrill and delight me. It *sounds* great!
Knopf thinks $14.99 is right and proper. I say use the library.
The Publisher Says: From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town
The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories.
The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities.
The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I cried "Uncle" at 64% because I just don't care anymore.
I hadn't meant to sound so angry. Nothing about their calm faces in my uncle's kitchen made any sense.
I read that, thought, "I couldn't agree more," and put the book down. I had steadily lost interest, which was a sadness since I really wanted this read to thrill and delight me. It *sounds* great!
Knopf thinks $14.99 is right and proper. I say use the library.
March 27, 2025
Loved it!
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
March 13, 2025Okay, I'm not going to star-rate this one (where possible) because I didn't even make it 5% of the way through.
Every reader has something they just won't read about, and for me, it's animal cruelty. I'm fine with writers who put it in their work, with readers who don't mind it, even with splatterpunk fans and the like who enjoy violence of this sort. But I can not read it.
Unfortunately, this book by a brilliant and highly celebrated author opens with a grisly scene of violence against animals. This put me off of the rest of the book in a major way. So I stopped reading, for my own peace of mind.
This will be an outlier opinion, no doubt, as the writing is gorgeous. I think this scene may not have affected me so deeply if it were not so perfectly drawn. The opening scene does make a powerful statement about how we bring up boys, and I think that's important.
Thank you to the author Karen Russell, publishers Knopf, and NetGalley for an accessible advance digital copy of THE ANTIDOTE. All views are mine.
---------------
Every reader has something they just won't read about, and for me, it's animal cruelty. I'm fine with writers who put it in their work, with readers who don't mind it, even with splatterpunk fans and the like who enjoy violence of this sort. But I can not read it.
Unfortunately, this book by a brilliant and highly celebrated author opens with a grisly scene of violence against animals. This put me off of the rest of the book in a major way. So I stopped reading, for my own peace of mind.
This will be an outlier opinion, no doubt, as the writing is gorgeous. I think this scene may not have affected me so deeply if it were not so perfectly drawn. The opening scene does make a powerful statement about how we bring up boys, and I think that's important.
Thank you to the author Karen Russell, publishers Knopf, and NetGalley for an accessible advance digital copy of THE ANTIDOTE. All views are mine.
---------------
March 26, 2025
I received a copy for review purposes. All opinions are honest and mine alone.
Sixteen days - that’s how long it took me to read this 400 page book. It has pictures and a fair amount of white space so this is a very long time, especially for a book in the fiction genre. Granted, the subject is historically accurate and it’s not an upbeat, happy-go-lucky, page turner type story. Still, this is an inordinate amount of time. Kinda like how long it’s taking me to say this book was a slog. The writing is ok but the editor was asleep at their desk.
To start with, there are a lot of POV’s. We hear the story from them all, multiple times and then we hear it again and again and, well, you get the idea. There’s entirely too much telling. Because of the number of characters contributing, I found it very difficult to maintain their storylines from entry to entry, especially in the beginning. It wasn’t only the prairie that was dry. In the last few months, I’ve read a few books that were about horrific events, (child armies in Africa, labor camps in Poland, etc.), and those books had one thing in common. Even tho’ the stories were gruesome and horrifying, there was an element of hope and humor, even if it was just a flash for a moment or a passing character, it was there to offer relief to the readers. THE ANTIDOTE was burdensome all the time.
The only thing I found interesting about this story is what wasn’t told: did anyone actually do anything to make restitution? Answering that would require another book that I’m not sure I have enough literary strength to conquer, should the author, Karen Russell, decide to find her boots & mask to visit the dust bowl again📚
Read & Reviewed from a GoodReads GiveAway ARC, with thanks.
Sixteen days - that’s how long it took me to read this 400 page book. It has pictures and a fair amount of white space so this is a very long time, especially for a book in the fiction genre. Granted, the subject is historically accurate and it’s not an upbeat, happy-go-lucky, page turner type story. Still, this is an inordinate amount of time. Kinda like how long it’s taking me to say this book was a slog. The writing is ok but the editor was asleep at their desk.
To start with, there are a lot of POV’s. We hear the story from them all, multiple times and then we hear it again and again and, well, you get the idea. There’s entirely too much telling. Because of the number of characters contributing, I found it very difficult to maintain their storylines from entry to entry, especially in the beginning. It wasn’t only the prairie that was dry. In the last few months, I’ve read a few books that were about horrific events, (child armies in Africa, labor camps in Poland, etc.), and those books had one thing in common. Even tho’ the stories were gruesome and horrifying, there was an element of hope and humor, even if it was just a flash for a moment or a passing character, it was there to offer relief to the readers. THE ANTIDOTE was burdensome all the time.
The only thing I found interesting about this story is what wasn’t told: did anyone actually do anything to make restitution? Answering that would require another book that I’m not sure I have enough literary strength to conquer, should the author, Karen Russell, decide to find her boots & mask to visit the dust bowl again📚
Read & Reviewed from a GoodReads GiveAway ARC, with thanks.
February 23, 2025
The Antidote is a Great American Novel and my kind of historical fiction. Beautifully written, weird, and deeply moving. The Antidote is bookended by two very real weather disasters in Nebraska - the 1935 dust storm referred to as “Black Sunday” and the flooding of the Republican River after 24 inches of rain in 24 hours soon after. We have a cast of incredible characters: a Prairie Witch who can absorb and store her customer’s memories forever or until they want them back, an uncle and niece grieving in different ways, a photographer whose camera can capture things not yet there and reveal past truths, and a scarecrow with very human thoughts. That won’t be everyone, but I loved it.
That strange cast of characters made this book hard for me to put down. Every point of view was interesting and had something to say. Memory is at play in every section, and as a whole, Karen Russell is critiquing the amnesia that falls over those history deems the “good guys” and she does this in some many singular and profound ways. One of my favorite booksellers turned away from this one because of the animal cruelty, and yes, it’s there and it’s hard, and it also serves a purpose.
This book left me filled with hope and full body chills. It’s unlike anything I’ve read and I absolutely loved it. I’ll never think about memory the same. Thank you @aaknopf for the chance to read this ahead of its March 11th publication.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
That strange cast of characters made this book hard for me to put down. Every point of view was interesting and had something to say. Memory is at play in every section, and as a whole, Karen Russell is critiquing the amnesia that falls over those history deems the “good guys” and she does this in some many singular and profound ways. One of my favorite booksellers turned away from this one because of the animal cruelty, and yes, it’s there and it’s hard, and it also serves a purpose.
This book left me filled with hope and full body chills. It’s unlike anything I’ve read and I absolutely loved it. I’ll never think about memory the same. Thank you @aaknopf for the chance to read this ahead of its March 11th publication.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
December 19, 2024
This novel was very different from "Swamplandia!" which I remember as being very dark. This is also unsettling, but in a different way: "The Antidote" is historical fiction mixed with magical realism, and deals with very stark topics of racism, bodily autonomy and the criminal justice system, among others. But you're also treated to fun things, like the point-of-view of a scarecrow. Although, those chapters were too short for me, even if they were kept that way for the sake of mystery. He had a head full of straw, after all.
I loved the concept of a “Vault,” meaning a witch that you can go to and tell her a painful memory that you want to forget, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” style. Only this time you are able to return years later with a receipt and get the memory back, if you choose to. The witches serve as a sort of memory bank. (Though they themselves blackout during the sessions and have no recollection of what information they’re holding onto.) What a cool idea! My favorite character in the book was "The Antidote," herself. But the chapters detailing her backstory at the home for unwed mothers were really tough to get through and reminded me a lot of Grady Hendrix’s “Witchcraft For Wayward Girls.” I know that stories about women and girls being horribly abused are frightfully relevant, but frankly I need a break from them right now.
This story is full of rich, multi-dimensional, vivid characters. (The villain in this story, holy shit. What a scumbag.) I also really liked Cleo Allfrey, the photographer. The way she represented optimism in the face of hopelessness, and the possibility of a brighter future. My biggest joy in reading this was discovering how the various people involved in the plot would end up running into each other. I loved their interactions and I did end up caring about their fates. The last third of the book had me so stressed out! The journey was a rewarding one, in the end. I’ve gotten used to reading quickly and this is the sort of book that requires you to slow down and focus. It feels a lot like Faulkner. One of my favorite required reads for school was “As I Lay Dying” and this reminded me of that. This sort of book is not my typical genre; I don't really go for anything with a historical feel to it. But I trusted the author and I do love magical realism. It turned out to be a good choice! The character work alone was admirable, and so was the prose.
If you are inclined towards audiobooks, I think "The Antidote" would likely be a great listen. The language felt so lyrical, like the various narrators were really telling their stories.
I do want to emphasize that it can be an emotional read, so heed the trigger warnings. The animal stuff especially was upsetting. This book is both bad and good for cat lovers! Also, a nitpick: There is an important chapter about a confession or “deposit” made to a witch that goes on forever and I couldn’t believe that even with magic a person would be able to store something that lengthy and detailed in her subconscious.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
3.5 rounded up to a 4!
Biggest TW: Animal harm/death, Misogyny, Suicide, Racism, Domestic abuse, Sexual Assault, Mention of child death/Miscarriage, Lengthy chapter about the Holocaust and murder of Native Americans
I loved the concept of a “Vault,” meaning a witch that you can go to and tell her a painful memory that you want to forget, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” style. Only this time you are able to return years later with a receipt and get the memory back, if you choose to. The witches serve as a sort of memory bank. (Though they themselves blackout during the sessions and have no recollection of what information they’re holding onto.) What a cool idea! My favorite character in the book was "The Antidote," herself. But the chapters detailing her backstory at the home for unwed mothers were really tough to get through and reminded me a lot of Grady Hendrix’s “Witchcraft For Wayward Girls.” I know that stories about women and girls being horribly abused are frightfully relevant, but frankly I need a break from them right now.
This story is full of rich, multi-dimensional, vivid characters. (The villain in this story, holy shit. What a scumbag.) I also really liked Cleo Allfrey, the photographer. The way she represented optimism in the face of hopelessness, and the possibility of a brighter future. My biggest joy in reading this was discovering how the various people involved in the plot would end up running into each other. I loved their interactions and I did end up caring about their fates. The last third of the book had me so stressed out! The journey was a rewarding one, in the end. I’ve gotten used to reading quickly and this is the sort of book that requires you to slow down and focus. It feels a lot like Faulkner. One of my favorite required reads for school was “As I Lay Dying” and this reminded me of that. This sort of book is not my typical genre; I don't really go for anything with a historical feel to it. But I trusted the author and I do love magical realism. It turned out to be a good choice! The character work alone was admirable, and so was the prose.
If you are inclined towards audiobooks, I think "The Antidote" would likely be a great listen. The language felt so lyrical, like the various narrators were really telling their stories.
I do want to emphasize that it can be an emotional read, so heed the trigger warnings. The animal stuff especially was upsetting. This book is both bad and good for cat lovers! Also, a nitpick: There is an important chapter about a confession or “deposit” made to a witch that goes on forever and I couldn’t believe that even with magic a person would be able to store something that lengthy and detailed in her subconscious.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
3.5 rounded up to a 4!
Biggest TW: Animal harm/death, Misogyny, Suicide, Racism, Domestic abuse, Sexual Assault, Mention of child death/Miscarriage, Lengthy chapter about the Holocaust and murder of Native Americans
March 28, 2025
There is so much to unpack in this interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining novel. Historic fiction set in Dust Bowl Nebraska. Social justice advocacy, particularly in its treatment of native people and lands. Supernatural suspense in much of its plot. Russell hold it all together through the perspectives and stories of residents and visitors of Uz in between two catastrophic weather events. Even at over 400 pages, I was rapt throughout and truly in awe at her gift of language, stopping often to reread or copy a passage. Really, really good.
February 22, 2025
The Antidote is a work of historical fiction interwoven with magical realism that covers a period in 1935 in Nebraska, between two remarkable weather events, the Black Sunday dust storm and a subsequent torrential downpour that flooded the area. The story is told primarily from four different perspectives in alternating chapters.
I loved Russell's Swamplandia!, and this book, at its best moments, shines with her beautiful prose. These moments mostly derive from her beautiful descriptions of nature as a force. Readers can truly picture living in Uz, Nebraska and suffering under the challenging conditions.
Unfortunately, on the flip side, all four storytellers really speak in the same voice. Each chapter has a name in the heading, so it's not really an issue from the standpoint of following the plot, but the characters don't really come fully to life.
On the flip side, the touches of magical realism (something I normally don't love) were very creative and definitely were the most interesting part of the storytelling. Prairie witches take on confessions that wipe the confessor's memory clean. Scarecrows have thoughts. Cats seek retribution. A camera takes photos of the past and the future. So creative and definitely each element contributed to the plot and was not a simple aside.
The story has a very strong social justice orientation. It's not subtle. Covering the environment, colonialism, the stealing of Indian lands, the foibles of the legal system, and the mistreatment of unwed mothers all in one tale makes for a heaviness that really wasn't alleviated in any way by the editing.
The ending is dramatic, and in some respects very touching. But it's a long slow trek to get there.
I do see that this is a book that might win some prizes. So if you are a literary fiction reader who likes to be up on prize winning fiction, you may want to get to it.
I loved Russell's Swamplandia!, and this book, at its best moments, shines with her beautiful prose. These moments mostly derive from her beautiful descriptions of nature as a force. Readers can truly picture living in Uz, Nebraska and suffering under the challenging conditions.
Unfortunately, on the flip side, all four storytellers really speak in the same voice. Each chapter has a name in the heading, so it's not really an issue from the standpoint of following the plot, but the characters don't really come fully to life.
On the flip side, the touches of magical realism (something I normally don't love) were very creative and definitely were the most interesting part of the storytelling. Prairie witches take on confessions that wipe the confessor's memory clean. Scarecrows have thoughts. Cats seek retribution. A camera takes photos of the past and the future. So creative and definitely each element contributed to the plot and was not a simple aside.
The story has a very strong social justice orientation. It's not subtle. Covering the environment, colonialism, the stealing of Indian lands, the foibles of the legal system, and the mistreatment of unwed mothers all in one tale makes for a heaviness that really wasn't alleviated in any way by the editing.
The ending is dramatic, and in some respects very touching. But it's a long slow trek to get there.
I do see that this is a book that might win some prizes. So if you are a literary fiction reader who likes to be up on prize winning fiction, you may want to get to it.
March 6, 2025
I believe we have a choice in all this. There should be a word that means both “blessed” and “cursed,” I have often thought. Maybe that word is “freedom.” Maybe that word is “us.” from The Antidote by Karen Russell
In 1930s Dust Bowl Kansas, four people learn dark secrets. With the story shifting between these characters and their past and present, dark secrets unfold.
There is the farmer dwelling on the legacy of his inheritance. his immigrant ancestor settling on Native American land. His orphaned niece, a teenage basketball star whose mother was murdered. The woman called the Prairie Witch who takes men’s deepest secrets into her vault. A photographer with a magical camera that shows what has been or will be.
The farmer has been spared by the black cloud of dust that had decimated Uz, his field still green under blue skies. His niece and her team survived the storm en route to the championship game. The Prairie Witch lost her power to retreat into the Vault, and the WPA photographer can’t take a photograph to satisfy her boss.
The town sheriff has provided a suspect for a series of murders, ensuring his reelection. One of the victims was the farmer’s sister and niece’s mother. He fears the Vault for the secrets he has given her to lock away. When the photographer develops photographs of the secrets, the women and the farmer decide to confront the town.
An original blend of historical fiction and magical realism, the novel questions if we can tolerate the truth of our past, accept our contribution to the problems we have created. For these characters it is the degradation of the land, the genocide of Native Americans, murders to cover up a crime. The story is a mirror, making us aware that we have our own legacy for which we must take responsibility.
“Are these photographs of what did happen? What will happen?” “I don’t know myself,” she said. […] But I’ll tell you this much: I suspect we have more choices than we know.” from The Antidote by Karen Russell
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
In 1930s Dust Bowl Kansas, four people learn dark secrets. With the story shifting between these characters and their past and present, dark secrets unfold.
There is the farmer dwelling on the legacy of his inheritance. his immigrant ancestor settling on Native American land. His orphaned niece, a teenage basketball star whose mother was murdered. The woman called the Prairie Witch who takes men’s deepest secrets into her vault. A photographer with a magical camera that shows what has been or will be.
The farmer has been spared by the black cloud of dust that had decimated Uz, his field still green under blue skies. His niece and her team survived the storm en route to the championship game. The Prairie Witch lost her power to retreat into the Vault, and the WPA photographer can’t take a photograph to satisfy her boss.
The town sheriff has provided a suspect for a series of murders, ensuring his reelection. One of the victims was the farmer’s sister and niece’s mother. He fears the Vault for the secrets he has given her to lock away. When the photographer develops photographs of the secrets, the women and the farmer decide to confront the town.
An original blend of historical fiction and magical realism, the novel questions if we can tolerate the truth of our past, accept our contribution to the problems we have created. For these characters it is the degradation of the land, the genocide of Native Americans, murders to cover up a crime. The story is a mirror, making us aware that we have our own legacy for which we must take responsibility.
“Are these photographs of what did happen? What will happen?” “I don’t know myself,” she said. […] But I’ll tell you this much: I suspect we have more choices than we know.” from The Antidote by Karen Russell
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
March 2, 2025
Give me more epic wild west fiction with a dash of magical realism please! This is becoming my new favorite genre, you guys.
The Antidote takes place during the 1935 dust storm known as Black Sunday and in it, we meet a prairie witch named Antonina who makes a living absorbing people's memories. A local outcast, our witch is suddenly fearful of her life. The dust storm seems to have emptied her of the memories she's taken and the residents of Uz, Nebraska will be murderously upset when they come to make a withdrawal and find she's lost the things they are desperate to collect. But Dell, a thick skinned orphan girl who has an ear for the local town gossip, has decided to become Antonina's apprentice and devises a way for her create new memories for those who come knocking.
Meanwhile, there's a dirty sheriff doing dirty sheriff things; a visiting photographer whose pawn shop camera can only take photos of what once was or may come to be; and Dell's uncle, the one farmer whose land strangely seems to be thriving after the dust storm while everyone else's is suffering for it. Not to mention the odd scarecrow that's staked out in his field that seems to be untouched by the weird weather and a pregnant tabby cat with revenge on its mind.
It also addresses topics such as the unjust treatment of Native Americans, white privilege, and how, even back then, mother earth takes her revenge when we abuse her lands.
This book! It's a chunkster, and it takes a while for all of the storylines to fully pull together so you have to be patient with some of the back story stuff but oh my gosh it's so worth it and that ending. Ugh! My heart!
It's magical, and powerful, and really uniquely done!
The Antidote takes place during the 1935 dust storm known as Black Sunday and in it, we meet a prairie witch named Antonina who makes a living absorbing people's memories. A local outcast, our witch is suddenly fearful of her life. The dust storm seems to have emptied her of the memories she's taken and the residents of Uz, Nebraska will be murderously upset when they come to make a withdrawal and find she's lost the things they are desperate to collect. But Dell, a thick skinned orphan girl who has an ear for the local town gossip, has decided to become Antonina's apprentice and devises a way for her create new memories for those who come knocking.
Meanwhile, there's a dirty sheriff doing dirty sheriff things; a visiting photographer whose pawn shop camera can only take photos of what once was or may come to be; and Dell's uncle, the one farmer whose land strangely seems to be thriving after the dust storm while everyone else's is suffering for it. Not to mention the odd scarecrow that's staked out in his field that seems to be untouched by the weird weather and a pregnant tabby cat with revenge on its mind.
It also addresses topics such as the unjust treatment of Native Americans, white privilege, and how, even back then, mother earth takes her revenge when we abuse her lands.
This book! It's a chunkster, and it takes a while for all of the storylines to fully pull together so you have to be patient with some of the back story stuff but oh my gosh it's so worth it and that ending. Ugh! My heart!
It's magical, and powerful, and really uniquely done!
February 17, 2025
The Antidote is beautifully written--one of those books where I had to force myself to stop highlighting because there was more highlights than not. It is told from a multitude of perspectives--not all of them human. Or even animate.
The story takes place in rural Nebraska during the time of the dust bowls in depression-era America. Although the opening feels like a upernatural horror movie, it turns out that it is based on an actual event: "Black Sunday" when a dust storm destroyed houses and farms, killing people and animals. The feeling conveyed is of a claustrophobic terror--I could feel the dust and the fear. As the dust storms settle, we meet the inhabitants of the (fictional) town of Uz.
One of our narrators is Asphodel (Del), a 14 year old who has come to live with her uncle after her mother was murdered. She is the captain of her school basketball team and her fierce determination to win translates into an equally fierce determination to survive. The Antidote is a witch--and here the book enters the supernatural realm, where it will continuously wander around the edges and sometimes straight into the heart of.
Then we have Cleo Alfrey, an African-American photographer who has come out to the farming community as part of a New Deal grant. Her dream of achieving artistic and commercial success, But her artistic vision goes beyond what the people who sent her want, and her subjects seem to be making demands on her.
I often forgot about the supernatural elements in the story since I was so caught up in the emotional lives of the characters. But they are unavoidable--beginning with the witch who takes "deposits" from troubled people--who pour their memories into her until they feel able to make a "withdrawal" and deal with them.
The writing moves seamlessly through lyrical writing, emotional revelations, and an intensely suspenseful ending. I was surprised to find myself unexpectedly moved to tears several times and to fear at others.
The primary theme of the book is memory--as symbolized in the witch's holding of unwanted memories, we see how an entire civilization is struggling with the same issues. How it chooses to forget the trauma it has inflicted on others--the people living on the land that were dispossessed and often slaughtered when the "settlers" arrived. This "political" issue is enacted not through preaching but in the best possible writing of individuals struggling with their own memories and pasts and dawning realizations of what they have done, often without allowing themselves conscious awareness of their actions.
A wonderful, thought-provoking work that also is emotionally satisfying and evocative.
The Antidote will be published March 11 2025 by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf. I thank the publisher, NetGalley and the author for providing me with a copy of this ebook.
The story takes place in rural Nebraska during the time of the dust bowls in depression-era America. Although the opening feels like a upernatural horror movie, it turns out that it is based on an actual event: "Black Sunday" when a dust storm destroyed houses and farms, killing people and animals. The feeling conveyed is of a claustrophobic terror--I could feel the dust and the fear. As the dust storms settle, we meet the inhabitants of the (fictional) town of Uz.
One of our narrators is Asphodel (Del), a 14 year old who has come to live with her uncle after her mother was murdered. She is the captain of her school basketball team and her fierce determination to win translates into an equally fierce determination to survive. The Antidote is a witch--and here the book enters the supernatural realm, where it will continuously wander around the edges and sometimes straight into the heart of.
Then we have Cleo Alfrey, an African-American photographer who has come out to the farming community as part of a New Deal grant. Her dream of achieving artistic and commercial success, But her artistic vision goes beyond what the people who sent her want, and her subjects seem to be making demands on her.
I often forgot about the supernatural elements in the story since I was so caught up in the emotional lives of the characters. But they are unavoidable--beginning with the witch who takes "deposits" from troubled people--who pour their memories into her until they feel able to make a "withdrawal" and deal with them.
The writing moves seamlessly through lyrical writing, emotional revelations, and an intensely suspenseful ending. I was surprised to find myself unexpectedly moved to tears several times and to fear at others.
The primary theme of the book is memory--as symbolized in the witch's holding of unwanted memories, we see how an entire civilization is struggling with the same issues. How it chooses to forget the trauma it has inflicted on others--the people living on the land that were dispossessed and often slaughtered when the "settlers" arrived. This "political" issue is enacted not through preaching but in the best possible writing of individuals struggling with their own memories and pasts and dawning realizations of what they have done, often without allowing themselves conscious awareness of their actions.
A wonderful, thought-provoking work that also is emotionally satisfying and evocative.
The Antidote will be published March 11 2025 by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf. I thank the publisher, NetGalley and the author for providing me with a copy of this ebook.
January 19, 2025
Well researched and well written this historical fantasy was not for me. I never quite engaged with the characters or the town of UZ Nebraska. Set in the 1930's during the catastrophic dust storm Black Sunday and the Depression, the times are grim. The author follows the lives of five characters, the most interesting being the Prairie Witch one of many women who make their living storing secrets and memories of townspeople around the country. The pace of The Antidote felt slow and somber, I struggled to finish, but for fans of Karen Russell this could be a winner.
Many Thanks to Netgalley for an Advanced copy to read and review.
Many Thanks to Netgalley for an Advanced copy to read and review.
March 10, 2025
“The Anitdote” is a towering triumph!! A stunning, lyrical, devastating mediation on memory; the memories we lose, the memories we forget, the memories revealed to us in our lives and the lies we tell ourselves to erase the sins and traumas of the past from our minds and hearts, but also how remembering can help us forge a better future. From the first page you know you’re in for something special. The prose is lush and purposeful. I found myself highlighting line after line. The setup is captivating, a prairie witch who is a vault for the memories people of her town choose to deposit suddenly loses all the deposits after a dust storm. A young girl wrestles with the loss of her mother and finding herself while her uncle tries to find his way through the dust bowl and discovers a miracle is happening on his land. All the while photographer is sent to the Midwest to capture photos of the struggling folk there and she discovers her camera is showing more than she bargained for. And so much more. There’s layer upon layer here. It is a work of art. A novel that I will be thinking about for a long time to come and one of the best books I’ve ever read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!
January 14, 2025
This was an interesting reading experience- one that I wanted to sit with for a few days before shaping a review.
I know Karen Russell is a beloved author, and that this book is highly anticipated for many. I confess that I hadn't read anything of hers previously, but I loved the premise (and the cover? come on!)
It was a little hard to get into, initially. I think I struggled for about 50-60 pages. But then I loved it! I thought the writing was stunning, the plot engaging, and the characters were perfectly fleshed out. This went on for about 200 pages...and then I started to struggle, again.
I think this book suffered from occasionally biting off more than it could chew. I still liked the book overall, and will think about a few of the characters often. Do I wish it had been just a pinch shorter, and that it meandered just a little bit less? Yes. Do with that what you will!
I know Karen Russell is a beloved author, and that this book is highly anticipated for many. I confess that I hadn't read anything of hers previously, but I loved the premise (and the cover? come on!)
It was a little hard to get into, initially. I think I struggled for about 50-60 pages. But then I loved it! I thought the writing was stunning, the plot engaging, and the characters were perfectly fleshed out. This went on for about 200 pages...and then I started to struggle, again.
I think this book suffered from occasionally biting off more than it could chew. I still liked the book overall, and will think about a few of the characters often. Do I wish it had been just a pinch shorter, and that it meandered just a little bit less? Yes. Do with that what you will!
March 29, 2025
This wonderful and very unique novel, with its many themes and wonderful characters, amazed me on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin with my review. The setting is Uz, Nebraska during the Dust Bowl. There are four main characters. Asphodel Oletsky is a teenage girl who has come to live on her uncle’s farm in Oz after the death of her mother. Asphodel’s happiness comes from basketball – at which she is quite skilled. The Anitdote (or Antonina) is a Prairie Witch, who receives “deposits” of people’s memories. These memories are almost always things that people wish to forget, and after a person makes a “deposit” with the Antidote, they are completely free of their bad memories (and quite happy as a result). Customers can also make “withdrawals” and get their memories back. Harp Oletsky is Asphodel’s uncle and a farmer in Oz during the Dust Bowl. Cleo is a photographer for the Resettlement Administration (a New Deal program), who has been sent to Uz to photographically bring the life of Nebraskans to the rest of the nation.
The setting in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl is extremely powerful. The novel starts on Black Sunday and major, devastating dust storms continue throughout the story. The descriptions of the power of nature are breathtaking. Even more importantly, the reader experiences the drought and dust through the eyes and hearts of the citizens of Uz as their farms blow away, their crops are lost and they are unable to pay their debts. Set into dusty Oz are the four characters described above as well as a truly evil sheriff. Forces of good and evil are pitted against each other. The pace of the novel is quick.
One of the overwhelming themes is the nature of memory. What is memory? If you can’t remember something bad, did it not happen? How can memories be altered? What if someone alters a memory in its retelling to make the acceptance of it better for the receiver? Has our government altered memories? These issues are raised beautifully and powerfully when people make “deposits” with the Antidote, when Asphodel helps the Antidote with her “withdrawals” and when Cleo’s camera’s prints reflect the scene she photographed (in the story’s present) in past times past as well as future times.
Trauma is another issue which runs deeply through the novel. Asphodel has lost her mother, who she misses constantly while trying to be an adult. As a teenager, the Antidote spent a year of utter horror in a home for unwed mothers. Those scenes (which are based upon real events) will linger with me for a long time.
The novel also deals with the brutal displacement of Native Americans so that European settlers could take their land. This is a story which has been told many times, but Russell did it in a unique and highly impactful way. She used the story of Harp’s father (Tomasz), a Polish Catholic who had been displaced and reduced in every way by Germany. Based on unsubstantiated promises, Tomasz and his wife left their family in Poland and suffered terribly to come to Nebraska to find that not only was the land not as they had been led to believe – but that by taking this government offered land, they had displaced Native Americans just has they themselves had been displaced in Poland. Very well done!
This novel achieves a lot of its beauty and impact through magical realism. In order to enjoy it, you must be willing to suspend your belief in only reality and go with the flow of the story. If you do, you will be richly rewarded.
The setting in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl is extremely powerful. The novel starts on Black Sunday and major, devastating dust storms continue throughout the story. The descriptions of the power of nature are breathtaking. Even more importantly, the reader experiences the drought and dust through the eyes and hearts of the citizens of Uz as their farms blow away, their crops are lost and they are unable to pay their debts. Set into dusty Oz are the four characters described above as well as a truly evil sheriff. Forces of good and evil are pitted against each other. The pace of the novel is quick.
One of the overwhelming themes is the nature of memory. What is memory? If you can’t remember something bad, did it not happen? How can memories be altered? What if someone alters a memory in its retelling to make the acceptance of it better for the receiver? Has our government altered memories? These issues are raised beautifully and powerfully when people make “deposits” with the Antidote, when Asphodel helps the Antidote with her “withdrawals” and when Cleo’s camera’s prints reflect the scene she photographed (in the story’s present) in past times past as well as future times.
Trauma is another issue which runs deeply through the novel. Asphodel has lost her mother, who she misses constantly while trying to be an adult. As a teenager, the Antidote spent a year of utter horror in a home for unwed mothers. Those scenes (which are based upon real events) will linger with me for a long time.
The novel also deals with the brutal displacement of Native Americans so that European settlers could take their land. This is a story which has been told many times, but Russell did it in a unique and highly impactful way. She used the story of Harp’s father (Tomasz), a Polish Catholic who had been displaced and reduced in every way by Germany. Based on unsubstantiated promises, Tomasz and his wife left their family in Poland and suffered terribly to come to Nebraska to find that not only was the land not as they had been led to believe – but that by taking this government offered land, they had displaced Native Americans just has they themselves had been displaced in Poland. Very well done!
This novel achieves a lot of its beauty and impact through magical realism. In order to enjoy it, you must be willing to suspend your belief in only reality and go with the flow of the story. If you do, you will be richly rewarded.
April 2, 2025
The Antidote by Karen Russell is a tale growing out of the 1930s prairies where the land was dried to dust and the people were losing whatever hope they might have had. Then came Black Sunday, a famous day where a storm of dust turned day to night. We witness this event through the senses of several people in the small town of Uz, Nebraska. It’s hard to describe this story in conventional terms: the setting is real but otherworldly; the characters are human but the prairie witch does have her “other skill”-relieving others of the weight of their memories; the government program photographer has the quantum camera; then there seems to be a sentient Scarecrow; oh, and there’s a serial killer around too.
Memory becomes a commodity, untrustworthy or perhaps changed. So too with history, personal and community. There is magical prose in this novel and there are magical events. Time becomes fluid and the story of the settlement of the plains is relived. Russell has created an amazing vision of a town and people trying to survive in a hostile world without knowing or acknowledging their own part in past hostility.
The chapters alternate among these several narrators which works well to advance the story, the action and the magic of the entire work. These characters are so full of life, so real, that I miss them now. Definitely recommended.
Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in return for an honest review.
Memory becomes a commodity, untrustworthy or perhaps changed. So too with history, personal and community. There is magical prose in this novel and there are magical events. Time becomes fluid and the story of the settlement of the plains is relived. Russell has created an amazing vision of a town and people trying to survive in a hostile world without knowing or acknowledging their own part in past hostility.
The chapters alternate among these several narrators which works well to advance the story, the action and the magic of the entire work. These characters are so full of life, so real, that I miss them now. Definitely recommended.
Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in return for an honest review.
October 26, 2024
Astonishing.
March 19, 2025
A bit different but a good read with substance.
RTC
RTC
December 14, 2024
I'm sort of stuck on how to write this review. Karen Russell's genius is not only captivating, but it is mesmerizing; something that resides inside me that is not a word place. However, I will give it a try.
This novel takes place during the dust bowl and the Great Depression, in the 1930's. Despite it being historical, it is relevant today. The issues it deals with are front and center for our world: poverty, racism;, corruption, powerful demigogues, mysogeny, the erasing of history. This is a book that I couldn't read quickly. I really had to think - and that is a good thing. The gist of this novel spoke to my deepest core.
Don't fear the fantastical or magical realism. you will encounter. It is all meaningful and not just thrown in.. The Prairie Witches hear our secrets and relieve us of our memories, keeping them in their bodily Vaults. Basically, a Prairie Witch is there to harbor our secrets, those painful, embarrassing, harmful or regrettable aspects of our life. When, or if, you want your secrets back, you just go to the Prairie Witch and ask her to remove them from her vault.
Dell is the protagonist of this novel and her two passions are her basketball team and her apprenticeship as a Prairie Witch. She is a teenager but can see injustices all around her. She lives in Uz, Nebraska, a dustbowl community in middle America. Most of the people have left Uz, looking for a better life somewhere else.
Miraculously, there is a plat of green, growing wheat in her uncle's farm in an otherwise desolate community. Why him, not others? Who is blessed and why? Why is corruption tolerated and utilized by those in power to keep others down? The Antidote will address these questions, and more.
The novel is told in several parts, each addressing one or more of the issues in Uz and the world today.
I can only recommend that you read this marvelous book, stay with it for a while and question, question, question the status quo; what is considered normal and information as it comes to you.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an early review copy of this book.
This novel takes place during the dust bowl and the Great Depression, in the 1930's. Despite it being historical, it is relevant today. The issues it deals with are front and center for our world: poverty, racism;, corruption, powerful demigogues, mysogeny, the erasing of history. This is a book that I couldn't read quickly. I really had to think - and that is a good thing. The gist of this novel spoke to my deepest core.
Don't fear the fantastical or magical realism. you will encounter. It is all meaningful and not just thrown in.. The Prairie Witches hear our secrets and relieve us of our memories, keeping them in their bodily Vaults. Basically, a Prairie Witch is there to harbor our secrets, those painful, embarrassing, harmful or regrettable aspects of our life. When, or if, you want your secrets back, you just go to the Prairie Witch and ask her to remove them from her vault.
Dell is the protagonist of this novel and her two passions are her basketball team and her apprenticeship as a Prairie Witch. She is a teenager but can see injustices all around her. She lives in Uz, Nebraska, a dustbowl community in middle America. Most of the people have left Uz, looking for a better life somewhere else.
Miraculously, there is a plat of green, growing wheat in her uncle's farm in an otherwise desolate community. Why him, not others? Who is blessed and why? Why is corruption tolerated and utilized by those in power to keep others down? The Antidote will address these questions, and more.
The novel is told in several parts, each addressing one or more of the issues in Uz and the world today.
I can only recommend that you read this marvelous book, stay with it for a while and question, question, question the status quo; what is considered normal and information as it comes to you.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an early review copy of this book.
April 4, 2025
The Antidote in the title is the name of a prairie witch who has the power to take away all the memories that cause you sadness, guilt, and shame. Set in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl, the book explores how human nature is to forget uncomfortable truths and fail to come to terms with our pasts, leading us to repeat our mistakes, individually and as a people.
March 18, 2025
Karen Russell, the acclaimed author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, returns with The Antidote, a mesmerizing and unsettling blend of historical fiction and magical realism. Set against the backdrop of the Dust Bowl’s most harrowing days, the novel interweaves the fates of five deeply flawed yet compelling characters. With her signature lyrical prose and eerie storytelling, Russell crafts a tale that is as much about history as it is about memory, trauma, and the power of forgetting.
The Antidote is a novel of reckoning—a story about a small Nebraskan town that is collapsing not only under the weight of the Great Depression but beneath the burden of its own violent past. Through the eyes of a “Prairie Witch” who stores memories, a Polish wheat farmer caught in a Faustian bargain, his orphaned niece who dribbles her grief across a crumbling basketball court, a sentient scarecrow, and a New Deal photographer wielding a camera that sees through time, Russell takes readers on an unforgettable journey.
While the novel is enchanting in its ambition and scope, it is not without its flaws. With a dense, at times disjointed narrative and a tendency toward overwhelming allegory, The Antidote demands patience. It is a novel that both rewards and frustrates—an eerie dreamscape that occasionally loses itself in the storm.
Plot: A Collision of Memory, Grief, and the Supernatural
At its core, The Antidote is a story of survival—of people scraping against the edges of history, trying not to be swallowed whole. The novel begins on Black Sunday, the day of the most catastrophic dust storm in American history, as the town of Uz, Nebraska, is nearly wiped from existence. But Uz was already on the verge of collapse. Russell layers in supernatural elements that highlight both the real and metaphorical storms raging within these characters.
- The Prairie Witch: A woman who can store people’s memories and secrets within her body. Her ability has made her both revered and feared in Uz, a paradoxical figure of salvation and damnation. But when she wakes up to find that she has lost all the memories she has stored, she is left grasping at the edges of an identity that has always belonged to others.
- Harp Oletsky: A Polish wheat farmer who once believed that the land would bring him salvation. Instead, he has watched it turn to dust. His one chance at redemption—a supernatural “blessing” he received—quickly becomes a curse, forcing him to reckon with the bargains he has made.
- Asphodel Oletsky: Harp’s orphaned niece, a teenage basketball prodigy with an indomitable spirit. She channels her rage and sorrow into the game, dribbling through the dust storms as if outrunning fate itself. But Asphodel carries a secret that even she cannot name.
- The Scarecrow: One of the novel’s most unusual characters, a sentient being that seems to exist between worlds. Is it a guardian? A demon? Or merely another fragment of Uz’s shattered consciousness?
- The Photographer: A New Deal documentarian with a camera that can capture more than images—it can see into time itself, unearthing the past that Uz would rather forget.
These disparate figures are drawn together by the storm, their lives colliding in ways that feel both fated and tragic. Russell masterfully threads their stories through the dust-laden landscape, weaving a narrative that is both intimate and mythic.
Characterization: Haunted Souls in a Haunted Land
Karen Russell has a gift for breathing life into the uncanny, for taking the grotesque and making it beautiful. Each character in The Antidote is vividly drawn, yet they often feel more like ghosts than people—lost in their grief, their magic, and their desperation.
- The Prairie Witch is perhaps the most intriguing character, and yet her arc sometimes feels underdeveloped. Her ability to store memories should have made her the emotional anchor of the novel, but Russell’s tendency toward ambiguity leaves her at times feeling more like a concept than a fully realized person.
- Asphodel is the heart of the novel, and her sections are the most gripping. Her grief, rage, and athleticism make her a fascinating character—a girl who runs from her past, even as she is doomed to carry it.
- Harp Oletsky is the novel’s tragic figure, a man who once dreamed of prosperity but has been reduced to a relic of a broken era. His character arc is one of the novel’s strongest, a slow unraveling of hope into horror.
- The Scarecrow feels like a metaphor in search of a purpose. While Russell’s inclusion of the supernatural is effective in places, this particular character sometimes feels like an excess flourish—a gothic touch that is visually stunning but narratively thin.
- The Photographer, with his camera that sees too much, is a fascinating lens (literally and figuratively) into the story. His sections read like a fever dream, sometimes breathtaking, other times difficult to follow.
Russell’s characters are both the novel’s greatest strength and its greatest challenge. While each is compelling in their own right, the novel’s fragmented structure sometimes makes it difficult to fully connect with them.
Themes: The Weight of Memory, The Cost of Forgetting
The Antidote is a novel drenched in history, in the failures of a nation and the ghosts of its past. Russell does not shy away from the brutal realities of the Dust Bowl, but she also uses the novel to explore larger themes:
- The Power of Memory: The Prairie Witch embodies the novel’s central concern—what do we do with the weight of history? Can we bear the truth, or are we better off forgetting?
- The Unforgiving Landscape: Russell’s descriptions of the Dust Bowl are staggering, her prose as dry and cutting as the winds that scour the land. This is not merely a historical setting—it is a character in its own right.
- America’s Forgotten People: The novel reckons with the nation’s tendency toward erasure, toward burying its mistakes. Uz, Nebraska, is a town full of people who have been left behind.
- The Limits of Salvation: Each character in The Antidote is seeking redemption, but Russell does not offer easy answers. Some fates are inescapable.
Writing Style: Lyrical, Hypnotic, and Occasionally Overwrought
Karen Russell’s prose is gorgeous—lush, poetic, and eerie. She crafts sentences that shimmer like mirages on the page, making even the bleakest landscape feel enchanted. However, this beauty is also the novel’s occasional downfall. At times, the writing becomes too ornate, the metaphors so layered that they risk suffocating the story.
The novel’s structure, while inventive, is often disorienting. Shifting perspectives and timelines require careful reading, and some sections feel more like fevered visions than narrative progression. This is not a book to be read passively—it demands full engagement.
For fans of Russell’s previous work, this style will feel familiar, but for readers new to her world, The Antidote can be a challenging read.
Criticism: Where the Dust Settles Unevenly
Despite its brilliance, The Antidote is not without flaws:
- Fragmentation: The novel occasionally feels disjointed, its multiple perspectives and time shifts making it difficult to fully immerse in any single story.
- Lack of Resolution: Some plot threads remain tantalizingly unresolved. While ambiguity can be powerful, here it sometimes feels like an evasion rather than a choice.
- Overwhelming Allegory: Russell is a master of weaving symbolism into her work, but in The Antidote, the metaphors sometimes overwhelm the narrative. There are moments when the novel feels more like a series of beautifully written ideas than a cohesive story.
Final Verdict: A Haunting, Unsettling Masterpiece
The Antidote is an ambitious, breathtaking novel that lingers long after the final page. It is a story of memory, magic, and survival—of what it means to carry the past when the world is trying to erase it. Though it is at times frustratingly fragmented, it remains a stunning achievement.
The Antidote is a novel of reckoning—a story about a small Nebraskan town that is collapsing not only under the weight of the Great Depression but beneath the burden of its own violent past. Through the eyes of a “Prairie Witch” who stores memories, a Polish wheat farmer caught in a Faustian bargain, his orphaned niece who dribbles her grief across a crumbling basketball court, a sentient scarecrow, and a New Deal photographer wielding a camera that sees through time, Russell takes readers on an unforgettable journey.
While the novel is enchanting in its ambition and scope, it is not without its flaws. With a dense, at times disjointed narrative and a tendency toward overwhelming allegory, The Antidote demands patience. It is a novel that both rewards and frustrates—an eerie dreamscape that occasionally loses itself in the storm.
Plot: A Collision of Memory, Grief, and the Supernatural
At its core, The Antidote is a story of survival—of people scraping against the edges of history, trying not to be swallowed whole. The novel begins on Black Sunday, the day of the most catastrophic dust storm in American history, as the town of Uz, Nebraska, is nearly wiped from existence. But Uz was already on the verge of collapse. Russell layers in supernatural elements that highlight both the real and metaphorical storms raging within these characters.
- The Prairie Witch: A woman who can store people’s memories and secrets within her body. Her ability has made her both revered and feared in Uz, a paradoxical figure of salvation and damnation. But when she wakes up to find that she has lost all the memories she has stored, she is left grasping at the edges of an identity that has always belonged to others.
- Harp Oletsky: A Polish wheat farmer who once believed that the land would bring him salvation. Instead, he has watched it turn to dust. His one chance at redemption—a supernatural “blessing” he received—quickly becomes a curse, forcing him to reckon with the bargains he has made.
- Asphodel Oletsky: Harp’s orphaned niece, a teenage basketball prodigy with an indomitable spirit. She channels her rage and sorrow into the game, dribbling through the dust storms as if outrunning fate itself. But Asphodel carries a secret that even she cannot name.
- The Scarecrow: One of the novel’s most unusual characters, a sentient being that seems to exist between worlds. Is it a guardian? A demon? Or merely another fragment of Uz’s shattered consciousness?
- The Photographer: A New Deal documentarian with a camera that can capture more than images—it can see into time itself, unearthing the past that Uz would rather forget.
These disparate figures are drawn together by the storm, their lives colliding in ways that feel both fated and tragic. Russell masterfully threads their stories through the dust-laden landscape, weaving a narrative that is both intimate and mythic.
Characterization: Haunted Souls in a Haunted Land
Karen Russell has a gift for breathing life into the uncanny, for taking the grotesque and making it beautiful. Each character in The Antidote is vividly drawn, yet they often feel more like ghosts than people—lost in their grief, their magic, and their desperation.
- The Prairie Witch is perhaps the most intriguing character, and yet her arc sometimes feels underdeveloped. Her ability to store memories should have made her the emotional anchor of the novel, but Russell’s tendency toward ambiguity leaves her at times feeling more like a concept than a fully realized person.
- Asphodel is the heart of the novel, and her sections are the most gripping. Her grief, rage, and athleticism make her a fascinating character—a girl who runs from her past, even as she is doomed to carry it.
- Harp Oletsky is the novel’s tragic figure, a man who once dreamed of prosperity but has been reduced to a relic of a broken era. His character arc is one of the novel’s strongest, a slow unraveling of hope into horror.
- The Scarecrow feels like a metaphor in search of a purpose. While Russell’s inclusion of the supernatural is effective in places, this particular character sometimes feels like an excess flourish—a gothic touch that is visually stunning but narratively thin.
- The Photographer, with his camera that sees too much, is a fascinating lens (literally and figuratively) into the story. His sections read like a fever dream, sometimes breathtaking, other times difficult to follow.
Russell’s characters are both the novel’s greatest strength and its greatest challenge. While each is compelling in their own right, the novel’s fragmented structure sometimes makes it difficult to fully connect with them.
Themes: The Weight of Memory, The Cost of Forgetting
The Antidote is a novel drenched in history, in the failures of a nation and the ghosts of its past. Russell does not shy away from the brutal realities of the Dust Bowl, but she also uses the novel to explore larger themes:
- The Power of Memory: The Prairie Witch embodies the novel’s central concern—what do we do with the weight of history? Can we bear the truth, or are we better off forgetting?
- The Unforgiving Landscape: Russell’s descriptions of the Dust Bowl are staggering, her prose as dry and cutting as the winds that scour the land. This is not merely a historical setting—it is a character in its own right.
- America’s Forgotten People: The novel reckons with the nation’s tendency toward erasure, toward burying its mistakes. Uz, Nebraska, is a town full of people who have been left behind.
- The Limits of Salvation: Each character in The Antidote is seeking redemption, but Russell does not offer easy answers. Some fates are inescapable.
Writing Style: Lyrical, Hypnotic, and Occasionally Overwrought
Karen Russell’s prose is gorgeous—lush, poetic, and eerie. She crafts sentences that shimmer like mirages on the page, making even the bleakest landscape feel enchanted. However, this beauty is also the novel’s occasional downfall. At times, the writing becomes too ornate, the metaphors so layered that they risk suffocating the story.
The novel’s structure, while inventive, is often disorienting. Shifting perspectives and timelines require careful reading, and some sections feel more like fevered visions than narrative progression. This is not a book to be read passively—it demands full engagement.
For fans of Russell’s previous work, this style will feel familiar, but for readers new to her world, The Antidote can be a challenging read.
Criticism: Where the Dust Settles Unevenly
Despite its brilliance, The Antidote is not without flaws:
- Fragmentation: The novel occasionally feels disjointed, its multiple perspectives and time shifts making it difficult to fully immerse in any single story.
- Lack of Resolution: Some plot threads remain tantalizingly unresolved. While ambiguity can be powerful, here it sometimes feels like an evasion rather than a choice.
- Overwhelming Allegory: Russell is a master of weaving symbolism into her work, but in The Antidote, the metaphors sometimes overwhelm the narrative. There are moments when the novel feels more like a series of beautifully written ideas than a cohesive story.
Final Verdict: A Haunting, Unsettling Masterpiece
The Antidote is an ambitious, breathtaking novel that lingers long after the final page. It is a story of memory, magic, and survival—of what it means to carry the past when the world is trying to erase it. Though it is at times frustratingly fragmented, it remains a stunning achievement.
December 1, 2024
"The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate."
I read and enjoyed Russell’s Swamplandia! years ago and requested this ARC from netgalley. It took several chapters for me to get into this book. While this unlikely group were unique and well-developed characters (although I’d have liked a bit more backstory about Cleo), later perspectives from the Scarecrow and Cat seemed over explained, and I had to force myself to finish this one. There was too much going with Dell’s relationship (this storyline didn't fit into the book, but alone could be a more in depth coming of age story), a corrupt Sheriff, the relevant history and also magical aspects of the land, the whole idea of the Vault! It just felt like Russell created a bunch of interesting characters and threw them together into one book.
I read and enjoyed Russell’s Swamplandia! years ago and requested this ARC from netgalley. It took several chapters for me to get into this book. While this unlikely group were unique and well-developed characters (although I’d have liked a bit more backstory about Cleo), later perspectives from the Scarecrow and Cat seemed over explained, and I had to force myself to finish this one. There was too much going with Dell’s relationship (this storyline didn't fit into the book, but alone could be a more in depth coming of age story), a corrupt Sheriff, the relevant history and also magical aspects of the land, the whole idea of the Vault! It just felt like Russell created a bunch of interesting characters and threw them together into one book.
December 20, 2024
I am a huge fan of Karen Russell’s short stories (Orange World is one of my favorite collections). So I had very high expectations of The Antidote.
The eponymous Antidote is a witch, who has the ability to absorb people’s memories from them, and return the memories upon demand. Unfortunately, The Antidote wakes up one morning with that particular skill gone. And given that a local corrupt sheriff somewhat relies on The Antidote to cover up some of his wrongdoing, this proves to be a problem.
Then along comes Asphodel Oletsky, a willing apprentice to The Antidote, as she wants to gain funds for her basketball team. And we also encounter Cleo Allfrey, a photographer with a camera that can take pictures of what isn’t there.
This is a sprawling novel, with a lot of references to American history that went over my British-raised head. A lot of my enjoyment came from the characters, and the elements of magical realism.
I’m sure a lot of people will love The Antidote, but for me, it was just missing some of the bite of Russell’s shorter fiction.
The eponymous Antidote is a witch, who has the ability to absorb people’s memories from them, and return the memories upon demand. Unfortunately, The Antidote wakes up one morning with that particular skill gone. And given that a local corrupt sheriff somewhat relies on The Antidote to cover up some of his wrongdoing, this proves to be a problem.
Then along comes Asphodel Oletsky, a willing apprentice to The Antidote, as she wants to gain funds for her basketball team. And we also encounter Cleo Allfrey, a photographer with a camera that can take pictures of what isn’t there.
This is a sprawling novel, with a lot of references to American history that went over my British-raised head. A lot of my enjoyment came from the characters, and the elements of magical realism.
I’m sure a lot of people will love The Antidote, but for me, it was just missing some of the bite of Russell’s shorter fiction.
Read
March 10, 2025It’s 1935 in Uz, Nebraska, a twenty-five-year old town with a population of fewer than 300. A prairie witch (whose name we eventually learn) takes the “deposits” of townspeople’s bad—or good—memories through an emerald-green earhorn while in a trance, removing those experiences from the depositor’s mind to keep them safe in her own body. Asphodel Oletsky is a fifteen-year-old basketball player and unlikely witch’s apprentice whose memory of her murdered mother fills her with a bottomless rage. Her uncle, Harp, is baffled by the miraculous sparing of his wheat crop, and his alone, from the devastating dust storm of Black Sunday. Cleo Allfrey is a Black photographer sent West by the Resettlement Administration to frame and fix propaganda images for Roosevelt’s New Deal. And the scarecrow in Harp’s field is suddenly, alarmingly, awake and full of memories. From these five viewpoint characters, Karen Russell weaves The Antidote, a characteristically gripping and surreal novel that’s also a moving exploration of grief and loss, a reckoning with the true history of how the West was settled, and a resonant but never obvious angle on L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900).
It’s no good asking who the Wizard, the Wicked Witch, Dorothy, the Tin Man, etc., are. The Antidote isn’t exactly a retelling or a revisitation. Baum’s novel has been interpreted as allegory about, amongst other things, moving off the gold standard, the plight of American farmers, the plight of American industry, the inherent evil of the American West and Native Americans in particular, political revolution in general, and the military performance of US soldiers in the Spanish-American War. Where Russell finds her connections is in these themes: the plow of empire, the oppressive potential of money, the abdication of personal responsibility for collective wrongdoing. As the novel unfolds, its shape becomes clearer: it’s both a story of speaking truth to power as consolidated in one man (a corrupt sheriff), and a far more complex and cynical indictment of the power for evil that lies in everyone. Cleo Allfrey’s time-traveling camera reminded me of the goggles in Russell’s short story “Haunting Olivia”; the photos it takes show both the near and distant past, as well as many possible futures. Combined with Harp’s speech at the climax of the novel, their purpose is to show the people of Uz (and “us”—the readers—and perhaps also “the US”, the nation) that their prosperity is built on theft from, and the murder and displacement of, Native Americans (always called “Indians” here, because it’s still the ‘30s) and unfair treatment of Black settlers. The people of Uz can reclaim those memories and try to make reparation, or ignore them and keep ruining their own land; their choice will determine their future. The fact that they riot when shown Cleo’s photos is telling, but no less disappointing for that.
Still, within the ecological and social messages of the book, there’s a groundedness in emotion and an investment in the characters that stops it from being preachy. The witch’s description of her time in the unwed mothers’ home is a story in microcosm about finding love and joy in darkness, and also reinforces the idea of the power of collective action. (She muses that the people who kept her and other pregnant women imprisoned there were outnumbered; had the women chosen to act together at any of various points, they could have freed themselves.) Her love for her lost son motivates her throughout the book, and when that storyline is finally resolved, it’s perfect and devastating. Dell’s love for her mother fires her athletic ambition and her tentative romance with her best friend and teammate, Valeria Ramos (which is beautifully conveyed, the girls’ combination of confidence and shyness with each other just right for their age). Harp loves his murdered sister and his niece but also seeks personal absolution through truth-telling, and it’s his perspective that shows us the historical irony of Poles forced off their land by German imperial interests moving to America and doing the same thing to another group of marginalised people.
As a recasting of Baum’s concerns for the Anthropocene, The Antidote succeeds fabulously, and is also entertaining, compelling, and well-written. My sole complaint is that the ending takes a smidge too long to wrap up—but really only a smidge, it’s a question of a dozen or so pages. Do seek this out if you’ve enjoyed Russell’s work in the past, and even if you haven’t tried her yet. I’d only read that one short story of hers before, but found this highly rewarding. Source: NetGalley; publishing 13 March.
It’s no good asking who the Wizard, the Wicked Witch, Dorothy, the Tin Man, etc., are. The Antidote isn’t exactly a retelling or a revisitation. Baum’s novel has been interpreted as allegory about, amongst other things, moving off the gold standard, the plight of American farmers, the plight of American industry, the inherent evil of the American West and Native Americans in particular, political revolution in general, and the military performance of US soldiers in the Spanish-American War. Where Russell finds her connections is in these themes: the plow of empire, the oppressive potential of money, the abdication of personal responsibility for collective wrongdoing. As the novel unfolds, its shape becomes clearer: it’s both a story of speaking truth to power as consolidated in one man (a corrupt sheriff), and a far more complex and cynical indictment of the power for evil that lies in everyone. Cleo Allfrey’s time-traveling camera reminded me of the goggles in Russell’s short story “Haunting Olivia”; the photos it takes show both the near and distant past, as well as many possible futures. Combined with Harp’s speech at the climax of the novel, their purpose is to show the people of Uz (and “us”—the readers—and perhaps also “the US”, the nation) that their prosperity is built on theft from, and the murder and displacement of, Native Americans (always called “Indians” here, because it’s still the ‘30s) and unfair treatment of Black settlers. The people of Uz can reclaim those memories and try to make reparation, or ignore them and keep ruining their own land; their choice will determine their future. The fact that they riot when shown Cleo’s photos is telling, but no less disappointing for that.
Still, within the ecological and social messages of the book, there’s a groundedness in emotion and an investment in the characters that stops it from being preachy. The witch’s description of her time in the unwed mothers’ home is a story in microcosm about finding love and joy in darkness, and also reinforces the idea of the power of collective action. (She muses that the people who kept her and other pregnant women imprisoned there were outnumbered; had the women chosen to act together at any of various points, they could have freed themselves.) Her love for her lost son motivates her throughout the book, and when that storyline is finally resolved, it’s perfect and devastating. Dell’s love for her mother fires her athletic ambition and her tentative romance with her best friend and teammate, Valeria Ramos (which is beautifully conveyed, the girls’ combination of confidence and shyness with each other just right for their age). Harp loves his murdered sister and his niece but also seeks personal absolution through truth-telling, and it’s his perspective that shows us the historical irony of Poles forced off their land by German imperial interests moving to America and doing the same thing to another group of marginalised people.
As a recasting of Baum’s concerns for the Anthropocene, The Antidote succeeds fabulously, and is also entertaining, compelling, and well-written. My sole complaint is that the ending takes a smidge too long to wrap up—but really only a smidge, it’s a question of a dozen or so pages. Do seek this out if you’ve enjoyed Russell’s work in the past, and even if you haven’t tried her yet. I’d only read that one short story of hers before, but found this highly rewarding. Source: NetGalley; publishing 13 March.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 302 reviews