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 • 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

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from Lit Hub, Marie Claire, TIME, Vulture, Esquire, People, The Chicago Review of Books, and 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

1935 Nebraska Dustbowl drama with a Supernatural twist.

Set in the 1935 in the historical period when a real life dust storms drove many families to abandon their family farms. The farms were homesteaded by their immigrant grandparents on Pawnee Indian land which was a betrayal of a Pawnee Treaty with the US. Loss of physical soil leading to loss of community relationships challenge the characters to find a way persevere.
The story is complex with many characters who are living with loss of significant relationships, ways of life, memories of what was. Still others find a way to dispel painful memories and feel the better for it. There is a lot of soul searching.
Supernatural elements play into the story and they keep the reader guessing about the outcome. It is a long book. I enjoyed listening to it over several days.

Excellent in every way

I am in awe of this book. Read it. Somehow manages to be entertaining and deep at the same time. Great characters, great story, great writing.

Great story but no photos

The photos weren’t included so i should have purchased the print book. Bummer they couldn’t include them on audible

Karen Russell writes books like Nobody’s business. Period.

I don’t need Any convincing, I’m running Directly to Amazon to buy All of Karen Russell’s books on my Kindle!

Disappointing

I was hoping for more from this book, especially given all the attention it has received. Toward the beginning, the poweful descriptions of the environmental disaster that was the Dust Bowl gestured toward our current state of affairs only obliquely, however inescapably, and the mythical elements she introduced were fresh and had potential. That potential wasn't fully developed or explored as the book went on, though, and by the end the Star-Trek-style moral 2 x 4's (plural - so many reasons to be horrified by our past) were just tedious. She's not wrong, but we've heard it all before and her attempt to switch things up with an injection of hope was weak and unconvincing. Even weaker was how she resolved the conflict with the main bad guy. I liked the big reveal at the end, but it needed more space.

I like Karen Russell, but everything about this novel suggests her talents lay in short stories.

The narrators were fantastic with the fatal exception of the teenager - I was sorely tempted to skip her chapters she was so annoying. Probably realistic for a teenager, but who wants to listen to a 16-year-old's breathless melodrama for hours on end?

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.