About the Book
The Antidote
by Karen Russell
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.
Reviews
“A singular, haunting vision that fearlessly excavates the past and challenges the reader to face the future head-on. A storytelling tour de force that lives up to the promise of its name.” ―
Kirkus, starred review
“The spellbinding latest from Russell…an inspired and unforgettable fusion of the gritty and the fantastic.”
―
Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“Highly honored Russell follows two stellar story collections with her second novel, an ardent work of encompassing and compassionate historical fiction supercharged with her signature imaginative,
astutely calibrated supernatural twists. A dramatic and uncanny tale of the drastic consequences of the destruction of nature and Indigenous communities.” ―
Booklist, starred review
Consistently true of award-winning Russell’s (Orange World and Other Stories) work, The Antidote is wholly original, exploring memory, climate politics, and intergenerational trauma from unexpected
angles. With moments of deep excavation of murder and injustice, especially against Indigenous populations, the book is, on the one hand, a carefully composed elegy of loss. Simultaneously, it’s a story of
hope, with a through line that shifts the focus and changes the lens from forgetting to hope, with shimmering yet focused imagery.”
―
Library Journal, starred review
"The Antidote blends speculative and fantasy elements with rich language and vivid characters in an effort not to escape reality but to comment even more thoughtfully on it. . . . Russell’s lyrical writing
dazzles on every page.” ―
The New York Times