It has been fourteen years since Russell’s last novel Swamplandia, and it feels like she poured the entire decade and a half into this book. This is a mix of historical fiction and magic realism set in Uz Nebraska, during the Great Depression and in the aftermath of a historically violent dust storm. When you read Marquez or Borges you can feel the tropic sweat on your brow, and that heat and humidity fits well into the slightly off kilter worlds they write about. In the Antidote you can taste the dust, feel the grime stuck in your eye, and the desolation breeds the bizarre things they discuss. The Antidote is the name of a Prairie Witch who serves a vault for the memories of other people, and we follow her, her apprentice an orphaned teenage girl, the girls uncle who’s farmland was mysteriously spared, and a new deal farmer whose camera can see the future. It isn’t a breezy read, it is real deal literary fiction. Russell is a master, her writing is needle sharp, and the book has stuck to me ever since I finished it, like the film of grime which covers Uz.

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.

In the midst of the Great Depression, an extreme dust storm descends on Uz, Nebraska. Not only does it wipe out any inkling of a crop, but it devours the memories of prairie witches. Prairie witches, also known as vaults, store memories for people who don't want to be burdened by them. A person who makes a deposit immediately feels lighter, relieved of the heavy load. As the dust bowl ravages the area, people flee, and they want to retrieve their deposits from The Antidote, Uz's prairie witch. But The Antidote's vault is empty. Fortunately, local teen Asphodel Oletsky knows much about the town from listening in on the party line. She helps The Antidote plant new memories when customers show up to collect their deposits. Unfortunately, Sheriff Iscoe still uses The Antidote for deposits, against her will. But she can't go into her trance anymore and knows the memories people are depositing.

A reflection on memory and what it means to acknowledge the past and take responsibility for our roles tinged with the supernatural set in a harrowing time in history.

Karan Russell's latest novel, The Antidote, is a masterful blend of historical fiction and magical realism set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, during the Dust Bowl drought. Russell's signature style of fantastical realism is evident throughout the book, which explores themes of memory, loss, and hope.

The story follows five compelling characters, including the Prairie Witch, whose body acts as a vault for neighbors to deposit their most heinous memories. This unique concept results in a town of spellbound amnesiacs with holes where their memories once resided. Other notable characters include a Polish wheat farmer whose farm miraculously survives the dust storm, his orphaned niece who is both a basketball star and an apprentice to the Prairie Witch, a scarecrow infused with human thought, and a New Deal photographer whose camera reveals hidden truths and future possibilities.

Russell's prose is both beautiful and evocative, painting a vivid picture of life in Uz, Nebraska, under challenging conditions. Her descriptions of nature as a force are particularly striking, allowing readers to truly immerse themselves in the setting. The touches of magical realism, such as the Prairie Witch's memory vault and the photographer's magical camera, add depth and intrigue to the storytelling.

The novel also addresses important social justice issues, including the environment, colonialism, the mistreatment of unwed mothers, and the injustices faced by the Sioux Indians. These themes are woven seamlessly into the narrative, creating a powerful and thought-provoking read.
The Antidote is a profound and transformative book that will leave readers filled with hope and a new perspective on memory. Overall, The Antidote is a beautifully written and deeply moving novel that showcases Karan Russell's talent for blending historical fiction with magical realism.

It is a must-read for fans of the genre and anyone looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant story.

It has been more than a decade since Russell’s well-received debut, Swamplandia!, the story of Florida alligator wranglers that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. She makes a triumphant return with The Antidote, a story that is set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska (Uz, the town where Job lived in the Bible or a play on Oz?) after the market collapse in 1929 and during the ensuing drought years. Russell focuses on a handful of primary characters – Antonia, a prairie witch, who goes by the name “The Antidote” that she lifted from an ad for Pauline’s Panacea (“The Antidote to All that Ails You”). She advertises her “banking services” as a “panacea for every ailment from heartburn to nightmares,” by absorbing and storing her customers’ troubled memories; however, fifteen years of those memories that she was charged with preserving have mysteriously gone the way of the topsoil. Asophodel “Dell” Oletsky is a plucky fifteen year old who was shipped to Uz to live with her late mother’s brother, Harp Oletsky. Dell “was only alive to play basketball.” She was the star point guard of the team sponsored by Poultry & Eggs, until it had to discontinue its sponsorship because its owner had gone bust. To raise money for the team to travel to the championships, Dell prevails on the prairie witch to be her apprentice. As people pull up stakes to leave Uz, including the basketball coach, Dell is able to assist the disabled witch by fabricating “shiny new memories” to replace those missing from the Vault. Harp Oletsky is Dell’s shy bachelor uncle whose wheat fields curiously survived the Black Sunday blizzard; he is the only wheat farmer in three counties to make a good crop. Rounding out the principal cast is Cleo Allfrey, a Black New Deal photographer tasked with documenting Americana whose lens captures the past and the future.

In a town of only 200, the novel has an expansive sweep. Russell widens the aperture to zoom in more tightly on her characters and their community. Antonia fell in love with Giancarlo, a polio survivor and, when she became pregnant at fifteen, her guardian, Giancarlo’s mother, shipped her to the Milford Home for Unwed Mothers where she gave birth to a son whom she was falsely told had died during childbirth. Dell’s “pathetic drunk” mother had run off with a swindler and was one of several women to have been murdered by the Lucky Rabbit’s Foot Killer, who was later identified as Clemson Louis Dew, a gentle boy who had been hopping trains and following the harvest and whose electrocution was botched by the Black Sunday duster. Dew was railroaded by the corrupt sheriff Isco (whose wife perches on the party line and collects horror stories) whose bid for reelection caused him to fabricate evidence (and dispose of an inconvenient corpse). Russell addresses themes like the environment (Harp recognized that the community’s heedless farming practices led to the erosion of the topsoil, lamenting that the “soil rose in mutiny against the farmer”), and the historical whitewashing of the theft of Native American land.

Russell has crafted a gripping historical tale that is full of wonder (there are chapters narrated by a scarecrow and an anthropomorphized cat), but she maintains command of the narrative, never letting it become silly. This is a wondrous novel that is full of heart and humor with bittersweet undertones. Thank you Knopf and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this charmed tale that I thoroughly enjoyed and will recommend without hesitation.

Set during the Dust Bowl in a small Nebraska town, five characters struggle to set their lives straight after a massive storm. An interesting mix of historical fiction and magical realism this book explores memory, history, and social constructs. It was a little hard for me to follow all the different POVs at points, but overall, this is a very good book with a lot to think about.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Available March 11, 2925

The Antidote by Karen Russell was a no go for me. I found it a slog and I have several reasons: I don’t particularly like stream of consciousness and much of this was. I don’t care for magic, even the minuscule amount found in this book although I did find the concept of off-loading memories an intriguing one. The general topic was sound: the Depression era and the Dust Bowl that occurred in much of the bread bowl of the country. Characters were good and growth was shown so that is a plus. All-in-all, I don’t feel like the time spent on this very long book was time well-spent. I do recognized that some of the fault is mine.

I was invited to read The Antidote by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #KnopfPantheonVintageAndAnchor #KarenRussell #TheAntidote

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher allowing me to have an eARC of this book!
I have really enjoyed Russell's Short Stories and her Novella Sleep Donation in the past.
I am so sad to say I only enjoyed the first half of this book and around the last 20%.
It seemed like there was a clear beginning and ending plotted out, but that the middle got a little muddied.
I am not usually a reader of Historical and Lit Fic, so this may have been a case of me fitting more with the fantastical side of Russell's writing.
The Antidote, in my opinion, is heavy historical. Its a lot of historical facts meshed with fictional characters, who also have a sprinkle of magical realism. Especially with perspectives given from a Scarecrow and a Cat.
I felt that there were too many viewpoints. I really wanted to stay on The Antidote's viewpoint the most because it felt the strongest, plus it's the name of the book. Cleo Allfrey was interesting with her magical realism element that was later discovered in the book. I almost feel like as a reader of Russell's short stories these characters could have each had their own novella. They do interact as we get further in the novel, but I think I enjoyed the first half because everyone was separate. Then I enjoyed the random Cat perspective in the last 10% because it reminded me of the parts of Russell's short stories that I found interesting.
We also find out that a platonic teenager friendship turns into a romance and I didn't enjoy the sexualization of a teenager. The moments of intimacy in this books are explained through a lyrical sense, but it was still uncomfortable for me. This should also be tagged LGBTQ, because I think there is a reader audience for that and would help for marketing to the correct readership.
I have loved Russell's shorter form books, so I think this is one that is just not for me. I am disappointed because I felt like it was a 5 star going in and it ended up being way less.
This is definitely a “reader's taste” type of book.
As I stated previously, this is HEAVY historical, so if you want to know a lot about Nebraska and the Midwest from early settlers through the Dustbowl, then I think you will enjoy this one. Russell very clearly had a ton of research behind this book. She also includes real black and white photos, which was a nice touch. I spent most of my life in Omaha, NE, so the setting of Nebraska was what drew me into this book in the first place.
Russell's writing is still great and one of my favorite's lyrically. There were so many lines that I would highlight because the prose just hit in the moment of reading.
Overall, there was a clear emphasis in this book, and I don't think I completely fit as a reader. I'll continue to read short-form from Russell and maybe try out backlist in case this was just this one that didn't fit my usual reading style. If anything I discussed above piqued your interest, please try this book out. I think Russell has a very distinct writing style that I do enjoy.

Karen Russell’s latest novel is a timely commentary on what can happen when people as well as a society willingly forget their history - where they’ve been and what they’ve done. Set in the Dust Bowl in the midst of the Great Depression, this story takes its time and really lets you settle into the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, as well as get to know our cast of main characters and slowly unravel their stories. The main narrator, The Antidote herself, is a prairie witch, who can bank others’ memories - taking them into herself and letting the depositor forget them until they are recalled, if they ever are. The magical realism really made the story for me and I appreciated how the memories shaped the narrative and how her own story drives the narrative onward throughout the book.
Dealing with themes of colonialism, racism, Native American genocide, violent policing, and the mistreatment of women and mothers, this book is definitely heavy but in a necessary way? Hearing the town’s stories was sad, bleak, and often disturbing, but peeling back the layers of this town, its settlers, their history both before and after immigration and what they chose to forget is the essence of this book and its message.
I enjoyed the journey and the ending, though I would have liked to see a little nod toward what Uz would begin to look like after the many revelations that come to light from their recalled memories - will the townsfolk move forward with acceptance and an aspiration to make restitution and live better? Or will they forget again ..

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an eARC of this book! 🙏🏼</i>

I’ve previously enjoyed reading Karen Russell’s short stories, and was really eager to pick up The Antidote, Russell’s first novel in nearly 15 years. The novel loosely follows a collection of characters living in the fictional Nebraskan town of Uz, each grappling with their Depression-era surroundings in distinct ways. The collection of lives laid out here for the reader results in an interesting exploration of the interactions between climate, society, generational memory and guilt, family, and what it means to create a future without forgetting the sins of the past.

The Antidote is a well-crafted piece of writing, but it never really succeeded in gripping me in the way that I wanted it to. Russell tries to accomplish so many things in its pages, and in some ways this causes the novel to lose some of its focus. There are so many thematic and narrative threads weaving through the story, but they never really converge in a way that feels climactic, and many questions remain unanswered or unaddressed to the point that it’s unsatisfying rather than open-ended in that thought-provoking way that some literary fiction really nails.

I felt this most acutely when it comes to the way that Russell integrates historical detail into the novel. There’s clearly a lot of research that went into the writing of this book, which I appreciate and respect. But I don’t feel like it was perfectly integrated—some of the chapters read like sections out of a history book, while others exist in an almost anachronistic or context-less space that doesn’t really engage with the historical themes. This comes to a head at the end of the book, where one of the main characters is meant to serve as both the resolution to the main town-specific conflict of the book and also to the more expansive issue of white settlers displacing pre-existing Pawnee nations and then scratching that action from the record. But these two lines of the book don’t intersect in a way that makes this conclusion feel anything but disjointed, and there’s a very clunky transition between how these two disparate resolutions are handled.

I will say that I was much more drawn to the themes of the novel than I was to its particular historical context. There are so many echoes of the Great Depression—politically, culturally, financially—in the present day, so it was a smart way to sort of chain together contemporary commentary with a specific moment in history. But I grew up in Nebraska, and I think having been surrounded by the ideas that Russell is probing here has maybe made them lose some of their intrigue. If there’s a void in your mind when you try to picture Nebraska, particularly during the homestead era, or if you’re generally drawn to historical fiction with a sort of Steinbeck-esque backdrop, you might get more out of this than I did.

Karen Russell has a lovely writing style—straightforward, and yet poetic right in the moments that it needs to be. While I don’t feel like every theme managed to really stick the landing in the end, The Antidote was still overall a pretty enjoyable reading experience, possibly perfect for a specific audience that just, unfortunately, doesn’t include me.

Thank you to the publisher for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

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!

I cried "Uncle" at 64% because I just don't care anymore.
<blockquote>I hadn't meant to sound so angry. Nothing about their calm faces in my uncle's kitchen made any sense.</blockquote>
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.

Set in rural Nebraska during the Dust Bowl, Karen Russell’s The Anecdote took me by surprise time and time again. Although historical fiction to an extent, it proved to be so much more.

The novel opens with a prologue--the earliest memory of Harp Oletsky, a boy who should be celebrating his sixth birthday but instead is caught up in a jack rabbit roundup as local farmers and their sons slaughter hundreds of rabbits threatening their crops.

Harp Oletsky, now a middle-aged Polish American farmer, becomes one of several narrators. Others are Asphodel “Dell” Oletsky, a basketball-playing teenage niece, who has lived with Harp since her mother’s murder; a Prairie Witch, who calls herself “The Antidote; Cleo Allfrey, a black photographer sent to Nebraska by one of the New Deal projects to capture local Depression Era life; a Scarecrow that miraculously survives the Black Sunday dust storm that took both human and animal life; and a cat, belonging to the local sheriff’s family.

As points of view alternate and other characters enter the story through their memories or current events, readers gradually learn the narrators’ backstories and the area’s local history. What begins as almost nightmarish realism of hardscrabble lives morphs into magical realism in which Prairie Witches, also called “Vaults” can deposit haunting memories, allowing clients to walk blissfully away and in which a photographer’s negatives and prints take on lives of their own.

This is a story of personal loss, sorrow and longing, natural losses, murder, mass slaughter, corruption, deception, self-justification, dreams and haunting memories, suffering and miracles, of taking risks, facing dangers, listening to the heart, and finding love and family.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an advance reader egalley of Karen Russell’s highly recommended, genre-bending new novel. As a mix of historical fiction, climate fiction, and crime fiction, of realism, magical realism, and social justice, The Antidote will appeal to diverse readers.

Overall really enjoyed this read though I will say that it felt like a slog in the beginning. As such it did kind of feel like the book could have been edited down a bit more. Lots of what felt like pointless filler at times. But the story itself was original and interesting. The mixed perspectives I was iffy on at first but by the end found them very enjoyable with the plot.

I've loved Ms Russell's prior books so was excited when I saw the plot of this one. There's been a few epic sagas lately about the dust bowls in the US during the great depression, and how devastating they are to the people and land they farm. This story blends magical realism with 4 characters' experiences in the town of Uz, Nebraska. Each character tells their story through a different perspective. There's the witch who stores memories, the wheat farmer whose farm is miraculously untouched by the storm, his niece, the orphaned basketball star, a scarecrow, and a New Deal photographer so is determined to get to the bottom of what is really happening in Uz, as his camera is somehow predicting the future. It's beautifully written and you'll fall in love with these quirky characters as they navigate this new landscape. It's a tale of hope, despair, and an ominous warning of the dangers of climate change.

The Antidote is a magical realism set in the 1930s Dust Bowl of America. The book had multipoint of views. The book was detailed to say the least.

This book was a lot. It was covering a lot. It was hard to get into and hard I felt like I was struggling to finish it. The photos seemed random at first but the reasons are slowly revealed. Magical realism is not really my kind of thing. Also I'm not really a history buff.

Fantastic historical story that borders on sorrow from loss of family , property and spirit during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in Nebraska. Chapters alternate between a prairie witch who acts like a secret bank for the townspeople; a farmer and his niece who plays basketball to forget but becomes an apprentice to the prairie witch. Despair gives way to unusual connections. Masterful and powerful writing that ties history to what could be our tragic future. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

Karen Russell is so good at weaving magical/fantastical elements into the worlds she creates. I liked some of what the book had to say about grief, living with loss, and learning to live with loss. I also learned things about causes of the dust bowl that are relevant to our current world. But, the conceit of White settlers erasing memories was too heavy-handed for me. It felt too simple, given all we know about US history and what the message of the book seemed to be. Given the glowing blurbs from so many interesting authors, I look forward to reading other opinions. Thank you to the publisher for the free ARC.

This ambitious book is set in a small town in Nebraska in 1935. Sprinkled with magical realism, the book starts during a historic dust storm. The story is told through 5 narrators: a farmer, his basketball-playing teenage niece, a "Prairie Witch", a WPA photographer, and a scarecrow. Through the narrators, readers are able to glimpse the past injustices that come from people settling land that did not belong to them as well as see the future and the effects of climate change.

Historical fiction infused with magical realism told by a farmer, his niece, a photographer, a "prairie witch", a scarecrow, and, yes, a cat. Set in Uz, Nebraska during the duststorms, this gives off strong Oz vibes to start and then moves past that. It's dominated by the Antidote, the prairie witch, who for a fee listens to people unburden themselves. And these are terrible burdens, most notably surrounding the actions of a corrupt and horrible Sheriff. Del, the orphaned niece of the farmer, whose life is somehow improving as the lives of others get worse, serves as an apprentice to the Antidote. Cleo, the photographer, buys a camera in a pawn shop which can see the future. These people are bound to one another. This is dense and there are sections which felt superfluous (the girls basketball games) and just when you might feel you've had enough, it takes an interesting turn to, for example, the Antidote's back story. Know that there are gruesome scenes as well as murder and abuse, with few spots of light. It's not a pretty look at history, especially vis a vis Native Americans. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Don't miss the afterword. A worthy read.