The Antidote: A Novel [B1622]

2025 HCDJ in nice clean condition. Finalist for the National 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.

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.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Wow, Russell really writes well. I was fully gripped by this novel of 'Prairie Witches' and ecological disaster. A strange, but wonderful blend of historical novel and magical realism."; "I loved this book for amazing originality, fascinating characters and Russell's profound understanding of history and the likelihood we are headed toward a repeat of history. It wasn't the fastest read but it was worth every moment.; "Beautifully written - a literary masterpiece. The characters were well drawn and compelling. The themes are timely. Highly recommend."; "This book made me think more than anything I’ve read recently. How do we continue to remember the bad things and help us to be better? Good reflection on native lands and climate change."