The Antidote

A Novel

By: Karen Russell

Narrated by: Elena Rey, Sophie Amoss, Mark Bramhall, Shayna Small, Jon Orsini, Natasha Soudek, Karen Russell, James Riding In

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD

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

NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Time, Esquire, PEN America, People, Scientific America, LitHub, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Globe and the Mail, Portland Monthly, Kirkus, BookPage

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 dustbowl

enjoyed learning exploring the legendary Dustbowl in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma as well as the Indigenous people involved, effected and affected. I knew about the Industrial school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This novel explored the Pawnee experience

Superb, multi-layered story with a talented cast of narrators

It’s all there in my title. This is literature, to be not only enjoyed but taught.

Beautiful descriptive writing.

This novel is beautifully written. Just enjoy the magical realism and don’t worry about everything making sense. I highly recommend reading the author’s notes.

A Panoply of Justice issues woven into a creative story

Loved this book. Covers an incredible amount of ground across a panoply of justice issues, all tied to mostly likable and worthy characters.
It comes together powerfully in the end and has plenty of exciting twists along the way to keep you enticed. My only concerns were some unfinished storylines with Harp and Etna, the deputy, Del and Valeria, as well as the awkwardness of The prairie witch apparently talking to her son in diary form which was confusing at times and felt disjointed.
Nonetheless it is a masterful work of art that speaks critically to so many truths our modern American culture needs to hear.

A favorite for me!

I highly recommend "The Antidote" and will relisten soon to catch what I might have missed the first time.