4.25 stars

The Antidote is historical fiction set in a fictional town, Uz, Nebraska. The story takes place around 1935 between two major events: the Dust Bowl and the flooding of the Republican River. There's a touch of magical realism, and even though this can be hit or miss for me, in this instance, it was a hit! It's heavy on the themes of colonialism, racism, and memory. This book is hard to describe and it has a lot going on, but each aspect packed its own punch. I doubt my review will do this one justice...

I really loved the characters in this one. We have a "Prairie Witch" (aka The Vault) who collects people bad memories and stores them until they are later collected (or never retrieved), a young girl obsessed with basketball, the uncle who takes care of her, a New Deal photographer whose camera sees things that haven't happened yet, a scarecrow with human thoughts, and a cat intent on revenge.

The chapter that saved this book for me came later - around the 70% mark - and the absolute brilliance of what Russell was doing with the Prairie Witch and our collective amnesia was such an incredible reveal! Truly, this chapter (though long) was so good - in its execution, its uniqueness, and its message. When I finished the book, I returned to it and read it again, and it truly was such a moment!

My biggest complaint about this book is that it took me so long to read (11 days when it usually takes me 2-3 days to complete a book of this length). Granted, I'm am in a super busy time of my life, but even though I felt compelled by the writing and the story, there was just something there that really slowed this one down. The middle felt like a total slog, and maybe a tighter edit would help the pacing.

Overall, this is a memorable read. From the setting, to the writing, to the great reveal; I came to feel like I was in this story. I can't help but wonder how differently this could have hit had I been in a slower time in my personal life. I also think a book club/buddy read would help the reader digest all that Russell is trying to accomplish here and would give the reader a greater understanding and appreciation for the story.

3.5 stars, rounding down. Historical fiction with several intriguing fantastical (or magical realist, perhaps) hooks and/or structural flourishes (periodic fragmentary chapters from the perspective of a scarecrow, anyone?) that ultimately didn't quite all come together into something that worked as well as I had initially hoped. The fantastic elements were never really explained in any way, which can work sometimes, but in this case, in my opinion, didn't.

I think my problems with the book lie largely with the fantastical elements. So we have a sub rosa industry of "prairie witches" or "Vaults" -- women (it seems to be all women, for no articulated reason) who serve as a sort of literal memory bank for people, going into a trance state during which a second person may tell them a memory, whereupon the memory leaves the teller's head and is stored unconsciously in the mind of the Vault until the depositor reads back their deposit number to the Vault and she re-tells it to them and restores the experience to their memory. This is a phenomenon that is said to be exclusive to the American Plains, and is used for good (e.g. offloading a happy memory in the hopes of recalling it in pristine condition late in life when one's memory is failing) and (more commonly) ill (e.g. removing knowledge of crimes up to and including the great social/racial/imperialistical wrongdoings one might expect of a book set in the late 19th- and early 20th-century American West). It's a weird sort of literalizing of what a modern sensibility might think of as the willful ignorance of white American settlers regarding the horrific treatment of Native Americans and other racial minorities on the Frontier, but it struck a bit of a weird note for me. It sets up a dynamic of, white settlers knew they were doing the Wrong Thing but were able to live with themselves by literally forgetting their actions or complicit inaction, but it seems more meaningful to remember that either white settlers knew they were doing the Wrong Thing but were able to non-magically forget or ignore that; knew they were doing things that were terrible, but genuinely thought that in the long run it would be in the best interest of Native Americans; or genuinely had no reason to try to forget or ignore their actions because they genuinely thought that white supremacy was the Right Thing. That is important! Having a magical amnesia profession feels to me like it kind of lets these people off the hook.

Then as far as the actual plot goes there's some dust storms that make the Vaults all go "bankrupt" (i.e., no longer be able to surface any memories that were deposited with them) for some reason, and also we have a magic camera that shows either the history or future of the subject of the photograph (sometimes numerous different outcomes even from different developments of the same negative). Again, fantastical but unexplained, and in service of plot threads that I could never really engage in for a variety of reasons. The bones of the historical setting and the writing related to the historical-fiction side of the book (as far as it could be disentangled from the story downstream of the Vault/camera elements) were quite interesting. It was just a shame that the genre elements (which I am usually in the bag for!) didn't measure up, for me.

I am just not the right reader/audience for THE ANTIDOTE. The style of writing and the opaqueness of the story and characters left me to only experience the dystopian features of the tale; and it was bleak. I couldn’t embrace any of the characters and I was deeply uncomfortable with scenes that described killing animals. I’ve seen other, clearly positive, reviews of this book. The right readers will find this book based on the author’s popularity. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

“ At 3:00 pm the sun was murdered in cold blood, in full view of every woman and child. The sun sank into black cloud. Buried alive, at a shocking altitude, by the duster to end all dusters”

It’s been six years since Karen Russell’s last book was published, and man was it worth the wait as she spins an epic story of four people whose lives come together after a monumental dust storm devastates their town in Uz, Nebraska.

Russell’s characters include a young girl sent to live with her Uncle after her single mother is murdered, the Uncle, a farmer who is about to discover a miracle in the destruction, a government photographer with a camera that holds its own secrets, and the title character, a prairie witch whose talent lies in removing whatever unwanted memories are trapped in your mind, an “antidote” to what ails you.

Like in her other books Russell liberally plays with magical realism, which totally worked for me personally, the witch in particular underscoring her idea of memory both individually and collectively, and the price we can pay for choosing to forget. But it’s also about our history, about colonialism and the way the indigenous people were systematically wiped out for a parcel of land. It’s about politics and power, and the corruption that embraces both those things. With poetic lyrical prose, and a cast of unforgettable characters, It’s a truly exceptional book and one I’m certain will be on my list of best of the year. Thanks to @knopf and @netgalley for the ARC. #TheAntidote comes out 3/11/25

The Antidote was everything you want in a Karen Russell book, but also a perfect entryway for those who haven’t read her work before. Gripping from the very first page. Entrancing. I loved it.

*The Antidote* blends historical fiction with magical realism, set in 1935 Nebraska between the devastating Black Sunday dust storm and a massive flood. Told through four alternating perspectives, the novel explores survival in an unforgiving landscape.

Russell’s prose is stunning, particularly in her vivid depictions of nature’s power, making Uz, Nebraska feel hauntingly real. However, the four narrators lack distinct voices, which dulls their impact. The magical realism elements are highly imaginative and seamlessly woven into the plot. While the novel’s strong social justice themes are important, their heavy-handedness adds weight to an already slow-paced story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC which I read in exchange for my honest review.

THE ANTIDOTE follows the people of the small, ailing prairie town of Uz, Nebraska in the wake of a historic dust storm during the Great Depression. Through the eyes of a “Prairie Witch,” a teenage basketball star who has lost her mother, her Polish uncle whose fields are mysteriously green and fertile, a scarecrow in his field, and a Black New Deal photographer, we experience the struggle to survive in this small community.

This novel is gorgeously written, with Karen Russell’s particular way of bringing places and communities alive. Through the “Prairie Witch,” whose power is to take on people’s memories–and with it, the emotional and mental weight of those memories–she explores what it meant for the United States to build a national identity around the settling the frontier while erasing the atrocities that were visited upon the Native Americans who were there first. At the same time, this is not just a novel of ideas. The characters are vivid, physical, and alive. And, wrapped within this novel of place and community, memory and identity, is a corrupt sheriff and series of unsolved murders.

This is a powerful novel. It felt slow at times, but when I stayed with it, I ultimately found myself carried along by the beauty and insight of the writing. Worth a read.

"From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: 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."

There's a very Ozian undercurrent...

An interesting read that would be a lot of fun for a book club. I can imagine a lot of different ways to react to this story.

As a long time fan of this author, this book somehow fits the bill and is completely different than what I expected? There is something so singular about her storytelling that I enjoy. Even though I prefer her short stories, I had a lot of fun reading this.

This one is a little outside of my preferred reading genres, but felt like a timely read right now despite being set in the Dust Bowl era. Well written and I loved the Prairie Witch angle. Thanks to Netgalley for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review, book publishes March 11. I also won this in a giveaway so I read the paperback version instead of the digital then passed it on to a Little Free Library

"It was a great collapse of memory that paved the way for our collapse."
"whose eviction is a tragedy, an emergency?...whose lost land tugs at America's heartstrings?"

spellbinding, incredible storytelling! Karen Russell is a master of the game. When randomly coming upon an interview that she did regarding her previous book, Swamplandia!, she described this Dust Bowl narrative being her next project. That was thirteen years ago! You can tell this work has been harnessed over time and carefully crafted. There's heavy research and dedication to the Native Nations and their history of ethnocide & genocide.
this novel somewhat reminded me of Lapvona in the way of a desolate, historical landscape being interspersed with witchcraft and magic. Inhabiting minds of different characters throughout the timeline. An antagonist realming over the throne. It's not as outrageous or satirical but it had that shapeshifting effect with world building. Haven't felt this enchanted with a book in awhile🔐

“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 forget 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!

Karen Russell’s The Antidote is an extraordinary novel—bold, urgent, and profoundly resonant. Set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, during the Dust Bowl, it blends historical fiction with the otherworldly, a signature of Russell’s work. This is a novel about memory—its absence, its weight, and its power to shape both individuals and communities.

At its heart is the Prairie Witch, known as the Vault, who absorbs the town’s most painful memories, leaving its residents as amnesiacs with hollowed-out pasts. Alongside her is a Polish wheat farmer whose land remains mysteriously untouched by the storms, his orphaned niece—a basketball prodigy and the Witch’s apprentice—a sentient scarecrow, and a New Deal photographer whose camera reveals both hidden truths and possible futures.

The novel excavates the town’s dark history—a murdered woman, a corrupt sheriff, the brutal treatment of the Sioux, and a home for unwed mothers steeped in cruelty. Yet, amidst these haunting legacies, The Antidote is ultimately a hopeful novel, one that asks whether we can choose a better future if we confront the past. Russell’s prose is both luminous and unsettling, her vision uncompromising yet deeply humane. This is a novel that lingers, demands reckoning, and deserves a place among the most vital books of the year.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

Wow, historical fiction is typically not my forte, but this was an extraordinary blend with magical realism that delivered a powerful story about memory, loss, and social justice. Russell’s writing is lyrical and poignant, capturing the harsh realities of life during the Depression while also weaving in elements of magic and the supernatural. I particularly loved the time-traveling camera and the mystical perspective of the prairie/buffalo.

This story was thought-provoking, emotionally resonant, and brilliantly executed. It definitely (rightly) had heavy themes of Native genocide, historical amnesia, and social injustice, but not to the exclusion of a hopeful vision of what could be if we acknowledge our past and the lessons it has to offer.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book, releasing March 11th!

I really enjoyed this one! I had loved Swamplandia when I read it originally, but on re-read a couple of years ago it just felt too dark and bleak, a series of bad things happening to the characters with no real moral resolution. Pleased to report this one, while it certainly has dark elements, didn't feel that way at all. I think this book had really powerful things to say about memory and who writes history and whose narratives are the ones that get told-it felt very relevant in the current political climate here in the U.S. All of our main characters/narrators were fleshed out, multi-dimensional, and likable and the magical realism blended well with the setting (I'm assuming based on some specific characteristics that this is meant to be a Wizard of Oz allusion but I'll be honest, I didn't really get it lol. Probably just a me problem). Don't skip the afterword content-there's a great supporting short essay and lots of references and research that went into this one. Between the content/topics addressed and Russell's excellent writing, I wouldn't be surprised to see this one on awards lists for this upcoming year. Recommended!

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.

This was tough to read, starting out with the animal harm right from the start. While I appreciate reading about this point in history, this was a book that just wasn't for me.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

One of the best authors of our time! This is a riveting book that is well researched and beautifully written. This moved me and it will be a book that I will be sharing with many people this year!

Spanish philosopher George Santayana is credited with saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This belief may be the central theme of Karen Russell's The Antidote. Another related theme is purposefully forgetting or depositing one's memories in a vault so that life can proceed without dealing with or learning from historical events.

The Antidote is set in a fictional Nebraska town called Uz while FDR was president in 1935. The main story takes place roughly between two disasters that struck the people of this region: Black Sunday, one of the most catastrophic dusters during the Dust Bowl, and the Republican River Flood. Uz is an allusion to Oz, the magical land that does not quite deliver its promises. In The Antidote, a group of Polish immigrants received large tracts of land to farm and seek the American dream. Although they had been forced from their homeland because of oppression, few honored the Native Americans they had oppressed to obtain their land.

Karen Russell's novel includes multiple characters' viewpoints, one of which is Antonina Rossi, who, before Black Sunday, had been the vault to the townspeople, allowing them to deposit their memories and withdraw them if they wanted. She was known in Uz as the Prairie Witch and the Antidote. She lost her superpowers on Black Sunday and was soon to be exposed for the fraud she was. The Antidote addresses her narration to her son, who was taken from her at birth at a cruel, abusive home for unwed mothers. She is the quintessential, disparaged outsider "woman" who is a mother. Although the reader knows about her motherhood from the book's early chapters, she does not reveal it to the other storytellers until later in the novel. There are multiple nuanced messages for modern readers in the descriptors and actions of the Antidote.

Another storyteller whose viewpoint is essential to the overall story is Asphodel (Dell) Oletsky, named after a flower, and living with her Uncle Harp Oletsky in Uz after her mother was brutally murdered. Dell is a rising basketball star on a local team that becomes known as The Dangers after Black Sunday. Dell and her uncle, another storyteller, have differences in lifestyle and personality, but both have a love for the murdered mother, Harp's sister. Both also struggle with good and evil. When the Oletsky wheat farm is the only one spared after the infamous Black Sunday dusting, we realize how magical realism and supernatural intervention play a role in the development of the plot.

The government sent New Deal Black photographer Cleo Allfrey to document the Dust Bowl in Nebraska. Cleo's descriptions of the people and land differ from those of the primarily white townspeople, and her narration contributes to the themes of what is real and what is counterfeit. Cleo's Graflex camera has the magical ability to show past and present. With her unusual camera and her outsider status, she is instrumental in exposing the inaccuracies believed and perpetuated by local town leaders since the Polish settlers took the land from the Natives. Of course, her presence in this novel highlights the injustices of the United States government that continue today. Uz is but a microcosm of the country where the people ignore the value of the Natives, persecute non-Europeans, and continually repeat the mistakes of the past.

Other narrators include a scarecrow and a cat. They further the analogy to the fable of the Wizard of Oz and figure prominently as the story progresses. While The Wizard of Oz provided commentary on political, economic, and social events of America in the late 1800s, The Antidote is a modern parable that uses the atrocities of Manifest Destiny and the Dust Bowl as its basis but is clearly speaking about modern times. It is a cautionary tale about how Americans cannot choose to erase the ugly memories. Government officials throughout the history of the United States have used rhetoric and euphemisms to deny and rationalize the treatment of the disenfranchised. In 2025, when this novel is published, our country continues to face far-reaching consequences of questionable actions over the past years.