I kept having to stop mid sentence as I read Karen Russell's long-awaited new novel The Antidote, stunned by a tremendous turn of phrase, wowed by her incredible ability to craft a thought. A fascinating, challenging, whirlwind of a novel whose ending blew me away.

The Antidote is a stunning blend of historical fiction and magical realism that transports us to Uz, Nebraska during the 1930s Dust Bowl era. We follow a prairie witch who can act as a vault for people’s memories, a Polish farmer and his basketball-obsessed niece, a photographer with an enchanted camera, and a sentient scarecrow as they grapple with their town’s dark past. Russell seamlessly weaves the stories of these unforgettable characters together to craft a sweeping tale about memory, reckoning with our history, and working together to build a way forward. Timely, thought-provoking, and beautifully written.

The writing is superb, which is what I loved about Karen Russell from the beginning. The magical realism, however, has fallen out of favor with me as a motif. Other than the Latin American "Boom" novelists of the 60s and 70s, the only successful usage I've found in more recent memory is W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe," perhaps better known by its film adaptation, "Field of Dreams." "The Antidote" is quite good, though not great. Then again, as a wise person once said, "only an average writer can always be at their best."

The Antidote manages to both be a grand, sweeping novel about systematic issues and generational trauma while still maintaining characters and storylines that feel so deeply personal and connected. Beautifully written and tragically imagined, this book had me in tears. Calling it now - this will be one of my top books for 2025.

Taking place during the Dustbowl in rural Nebraska, Karen Russell's The Antidote is a poignant, magical reflection of our pest, present, and future in America. It accomplishes what I think the best historical fiction aspires - showing not only how the past impacts the future but is unavoidably intertwined with it, with magical realism highlighting the sharp reality of our world.

I love Karen Russell's work, but I apparently was not in the right frame of mind for this one. I had to stop reading after the rabbit killing scene, and just couldn't go back. I will try it again, because Russell is one of my favorite authors, but I am not in the mindspace for this book right now.

It's me, Karen, it's not you! I'm giving it a 4 star rating anyway, because I know it's at least that.

I was looking forward to The Antidote for months, but unfortunately I couldn't get into the story - the characters felt a little flat to me.

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.

Set in the Cornhusker State, Russell’s newest brings together a prairie witch, a documentary photographer, a lucky Polish farmer, and his niece, a rising high school basketball player. The four main storylines, told through the characters’ voices and internal dialogue, include themes like society’s narrative construction of history, colonization of Native American peoples’ homes, the purpose of personal memories, corrupt leaders and their scapegoats, justice v. utopian “peace” built on fabricated facts, and women running the court.

<i>The Antidote</I>’s magical realism will quickly pull you into the lives of Uzians. “Vaults” are witches who can bank others’ memories so that whatever people deposit no longer burdens the sharer. When the black blizzard hits town, Uz’s vault, the Antidote (Antonia Rossi’s alias), mysteriously loses her power to retrieve memories. Local folks quickly pack to leave town because of the dust storms; as one of their last stops, they visit the Antidote to recover their secrets.

The Antidote’s loss coincides with Asphodel Oletsky’s desperation to learn the vault trade. As the newly appointed captain of her basketball team doesn’t have a sponsor, she shoulders the financial burden. The Antidote takes Oletsky as her new apprentice. Together, the two run a counterfeit operation, feeding lies to their customers, and they are none the wiser. People leave contentedly delirious; their memories are not nearly as frightening and burdensome as expected.

Their business partnership works until the town’s sheriff pays the Antidote a visit, transferring the information of his corrupt scheme of tampering with the law. Sheriff Victor killed a woman and simultaneously solved seven open cases of murder by offering a scapegoat. He planted rabbit feet on the victims’ bodies, falsely accused an innocent man of the women’s deaths, and brought peace to Uz. This secret crosses a line for the two women, particularly with Oletsky because her mother was killed and she’s out for justice.

This pivot also coincides with Cleo Allfrey’s assignment to photograph Uz’s condition for the Resettlement Administration’s historical section. Allfrey serendipitously purchases a Grafflex camera in Uz with the mechanism to choose the light and land she can’t see with her eyes alone. She develops photographs of the past and a sort of future—whether it is the or a future is unclear. Her time-traveling camera gives her proof of Sherrif Vic’s crime. The people of Uz may have forgotten their sins—the genocide of native peoples of the land and their aggressive farming of the land. But the camera captures latent images, and the memories cannot be truly erased.

I rate <i>The Antidote</I> 3.5 stars. Parts of <i>The Antidote</I> were harder to get through, mostly because (1) the content wasn’t as interesting (e.g., play-by-play details of Oletsky’s championship basketball game) and (2) Russell juggles quite a bit of material. I imagine readers may find some of the author’s narrative decisions forgivable because of the magical realism at play. The enchanted camera stands out for me. What’s its origin, and why can Allfrey channel its powers? Also, the question of Harp Oletsky’s bubble of luck remains unclear. As for the parallel between the farmer and Uz’s blameless and upright, I’m guessing Russell implies that the wealthy attain their riches through evil. But that point is unclear to me. Finally, the rigid, morally righteous motif at the end, enhanced by the magic, felt slightly contrived. I have questions about the Scarecrow and Cat. I understand why Russell would write a section on memory retrieval to tell more than show, such as when Harp discovers his father’s bank slip. Unloading information in this form comes across as heavier than I preferred.

My thanks to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC. I shared this review on GoodReads on April 1, 2025 (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7447950679).

Set during the Dust Bowl in 1935, Black Sunday turned the town of Uz, Nebraska dark as a tsunami of dust and dirt rolled across the Great Plains. Uz, Nebraska is already collapsing during the Great Depression and its own violent history. This novel is a reckoning with a nation forgetting told through the eyes of six narrators.

This is an atmospheric tale that is packed with social commentary, interesting characters and supernatural elements. I listened and read a physical copy, which seemed to be the easiest way for me to grasp all (okay maybe only some) of the nuances and overarching themes the author was trying to convey in this slower paced book. I loved the historical context and the dedication to detailed research comes through, but is not overwhelming. While I did enjoy this, I do feel like some of the plot through-lines were lost in the magical elements, metaphors, and layering of themes. Overall, I loved the history, and the atmospheric writing, but felt this could have been pared back some.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I enjoyed the story a lot with the magical realism built in. This book was written well except a few things like the scarecrow made little sense to me.

As a Nebraskan, I feel like this book captured the sweet strangeness of my state. Flyover country is often ignored, labeled as homogeneous and uninteresting. The Antidote reflects the hardships, diversity, and community that Nebraskans experience, and adds a magical, anthropomorphic element to our unique and stubborn ecosystem.

The Antidote by Karen Russell (out now, thank you @aaknopf @netgalley for the #gifted ARCs)

THE ANTIDOTE takes place around a particularly severe dust storm known as Black Sunday and the events that followed in 1930s Nebraska. This historic yet fantastically expansive tale is difficult to summarize. The story follows a handful of characters – a young woman, her uncle, a prairie witch, a Resettlement Administration photographer, a cat, a scarecrow, and a sheriff. The young woman, Dell, is living with her uncle after her mother’s murder. The prairie witch, also known as The Antidote, is a “vault” for people’s memories. She takes these memory “deposits” but has no awareness of what they contain, freeing the depositor from what they don’t want to remember until a later date when they are ready to retrieve it. The Resettlement Administration photographer, Cleo, is sent to take pictures for the government files but what she ends up seeing and exposing is not what they had in mind. The Sheriff is an unseemly character who uses his power to take advantage of The Antidote and her vault on many occasions. You’ll have to read the book to learn about the cat and the scarecrow for yourself.

When I read the novel's premise I felt compelled to read it given my personal and familial connection to Nebraska and this time period. My grandparents lived there in the 1930s and I recognize many of the places mentioned in the book due to our visits there throughout my life. Russell’s narrative is transportive, creating vivid images in my mind of what their lives were like. At the same time, it felt like she could just as easily be writing a postapocalyptic novel set 100 years in the future.

THE ANTIDOTE explores a number of issues and themes, one of the most prominent being memory, wanting to keep them and wanting to forget them. As I continued to read I realized that further below the surface it is a story about survival and how we navigate and live with uncomfortable truths once they are made known to us. Fundamentally it is an examination of what we witness and allow. Within this frame we also encounter and examine colonization, particularly as it relates to Native Nations and Native lands, immigration/White settlers and the government’s role, racism, gender, sexual orientation, and surely other things I’m missing.

While I can objectively see that this is a solid piece of literature and appreciate many things about it, I didn’t love it. I found most of this book to be too drawn out, and while there were moments I found extremely poignant and moving, the sum of these parts, combined with the straightforward prose, didn’t pull the book together enough for me to become deeply invested. This is of course a personal preference for what I enjoy in a book, but things were a little too neat, the things the author wanted me to take away were a little spelled out, and it just didn’t offer enough fodder for deeper thinking that I find tips a book from good to great. Admittedly I love a depressing story with a bit of hope but is it possible for a book with such heavy themes to be too hopeful? I found this too saccharine. Please go read other reviews, almost all of the reviews I have seen are raves. I plan to buy this for at least one or two people and I’ve already recommended it to a few others. So, while my qualms with this novel come down to personal taste, I encourage you to explore other reviews, as many readers have raved about it.

The Antidote starts with the Black Sunday dust storm of 1935 and ends with flooding of the Republican River later that year. This is epic historical fiction with a weird twist. We meet a cadre of characters, including a prairie witch who acts as a vault, safekeeping the secrets of others; a farmer whose luck holds for awhile; his niece, an aspiring basketball player; a Black WPA photographer; and a scarecrow. This story is unforgettable and unputdownable. If you like quirky and unique, The Antidote should be on your TBR.

This was a very slow book for me. It didn’t capture my attention until almost 75%. I can appreciate the author calling out how the land was forced away from the Native Americans and how the white men couldn’t handle their guilt and had to have a vault take away their memories. But the vaults, the cat and the scarecrow made little sense to me and just added to my frustration.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC of this title.

I had forgotten how good Karen Russell is at this. There's a wonderful sense that almost feels like found footage as we shift through the various perspectives here, augmented with photographs from the dust bowl, but there's enough of the fantastic in the mix here to elevate this beyond historical fiction.

Historical, magical realism is a genre I didn't realize I needed in my life but The Antidote opened that world for me. There are so many elements that manage to come together in the end. The historical details were presented in an interesting way and left me looking for more fiction set in the dust bowl. This tale shows the value of memory - lost, revealed and yet to be. All of this with some basketball thrown in.

Loved The Antidote - the tie ins to Nebraska, vague references to the Wizard of Oz, magical realism, and highly engaging story. Would be a perfect book club pick and for those who enjoy literary fiction.

I've never read something like this before. Multiple POVs from diverse backgrounds. I truly enjoyed every second of this, particularly the magical realism aspect. I loved that it included photos too. A historical masterpiece.

A bit of historical fiction mixed with a bit of magical realism. The dust bowl in Nebraska. The story of four people who come together to end the reign of a corrupt and incompetent sheriff.

Del is a teenager, a great basketball player on her school’s team, and an orphan - her mom killed - now living with her uncle on his farm.

The uncle, Harp, is seeing strange things on his farm. His farm is the only farm producing crops even though there’s no rain. His scarecrow stands ominously among the wheat, seeing all.

The prairie witch (someone considered a “vault”, people tell her their memories - she’s under a trance so she cannot hear them - and when they’re done with their story, the people no longer remember their “deposit”) of the town has lost everyone’s deposits and is now panicked. People are leaving town and want their memories back, but she’s not able to give them. The sheriff, who has used the witch to further his career and clear his name, discovers this and plans to use it to his advantage.

And finally Cleo, an African-American government photographer who finds a new camera in a pawn show. This camera takes pictures of, but the film that is developed is all pictures of the past and future.

This story is about community, teamwork, perseverance, a mother’s love, coming of age, and justice. I learned a lot about the Pawnee tribe and the atrocities committed against them, just for white people to destroy the land. A very good read, but a very odd ending.

I enjoyed this epic tale involving the dust bowl but the magical realism in this book felt a little heavy handed at times and pulled me out of the story a bit. This book follows a cast of characters during the dust bowl. We follow a prairie witch who can bank people’s memories, a farmer whose luck has protected him from the dust bowl, his niece who is a basketball star. There is also a bit of murder mystery in here as well. That was my biggest issue with this book was it felt like it was trying to pull everything in and left the story feeling vast and impersonal at times with certain characters. This book at had good atmospheric feel to it but some of the magic kind of felt convenient. This is my first book by this author while I somewhat enjoyed this I would still give the author another chance. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review