BookBrowse Reviews The Antidote by Karen Russell

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Pulitzer Prize nominee Karen Russell returns with a magic-infused exploration of memory, set in the Nebraska Dust Bowl.

Karen Russell's new novel, The Antidote, is narrated in turns by four main characters. We first meet Antonina Rossi, a prairie witch who functions as a "Vault"—someone who absorbs the memories of others so they can forget past pain or indiscretion. She bills herself as The Antidote ("The Antidote to guilt! The Antidote to sleepless nights!...The Antidote to shame!") and is enormously popular in the small town of Uz, Nebraska, where she's set up shop, particularly with a corrupt sheriff who frequently uses her skills to wipe the memories of prisoners he's abused.

We are then introduced to dryland farmer Harp Oletsky and his fifteen-year-old niece, Asphodel, who has unexpectedly become his responsibility after her mother was murdered. Harp, a lifelong bachelor, is struggling to raise crops during the drought that has plagued the land for years, while simultaneously being baffled by the teenage girl. For her part, the grieving Asphodel feels untethered and pours herself into playing basketball with her high school team.

These characters' lives are upended on Black Sunday—April 14, 1935—by one of the worst dust storms in American history ("The sun sank into black cloud. Buried alive…by the duster to end all dusters," Russell writes). The Antidote's store of memories is suddenly drained, leaving her unable to return her customers' recollections when asked and threatening her livelihood. Harp's life, meanwhile, takes a turn for the better. His parched wheat begins to green up, the air around his property and his home itself are mysteriously free from the dust, and he appears years younger; Asphodel becomes a basketball phenom.

Cleo Allfrey, a Black photographer dispatched by the US government to document conditions in the Dust Bowl (see Beyond the Book), rounds out the cast. Shortly after the storm, she purchases a camera at a local pawn shop and quickly discovers that the images it produces don't depict the present. Sometimes the photos develop into portraits of the past, showing the thriving Pawnee community that once existed on the land; other times, the images that emerge are of the area's possible future. One such picture reveals the shocking truth about a recent crime.

These disparate characters ultimately join forces to expose the sheriff's wrongdoing and free an innocent man unjustly sent to death row. It's a captivating story; part of the fun of the novel is seeing how Russell ties the plotlines together, and the satisfying way she does so is a wonder to behold. The narrative is loaded with tidbits that will please historical fiction readers, and Russell's writing is, as always, exquisite. In an early scene, Antonina observes the dust storm move in while she is incarcerated:

"The Sheriff and his family lived in a two-story brick frame house facing the jail, parts and blueprint purchased from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. It sat on the free side of the property, five hundred yards beyond the bars of my two-foot-by-two-foot window. As the dust blew into my cell, outside things became less and less real. The Sheriff's house slimmed to a charcoal sketch. Erased, redrawn, and finally lost to sight. The sky was well and truly falling."

What makes The Antidote such a marvel, though, is the depth beneath the compelling plot. Russell explores not only environmental issues, but racism, the displacement of Native Americans by government-sponsored settlers, the perceived role of women in 1930s America, and much more. Above all, the book is a study of memory—what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget—and how cultural amnesia can affect future generations.

While I reveled in the novel's complexity, it may be the book's undoing for some readers. Russell packs a huge number of issues into her narrative, and some may feel she's taken on too much. Digressions and flashbacks further complicate the story, some of which may be more or less interesting than others, depending on one's historical knowledge (for example, lengthy passages about the Milford Industrial Home for unmarried pregnant women may not interest those who already know about such institutions). And there are several plot elements that seem nonsensical until the end of the novel, such as an increasingly sentient scarecrow. Once everything is tied together, I suspect the majority of readers will find the book unforgettable, but getting to the end may require a bit of effort.

This review first ran in the March 12, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.