Title: The Antidote
Author: Karen Russell
Publisher: Knopf 2025
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Pages: 432
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; Cover Lover - Real Historical Photograph
Where I Got It: Amazon purchase
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.
I kept waffling between three and four stars for this book. There are some parts that I absolutely adored! On the other hand, there were parts that stretched believability (not the magical parts) and parts that dragged on so much. I fell for the strange otherworldly atmosphere of Uz Nebraska during the Dust Bowl. The historical fiction aspects of the book really sucked me into a time and place. I loved those parts! I also really enjoyed the magical realism sections. The short chapters narrated by the scarecrow were great. I loved the injection of strange-ness to the story. I also really enjoyed the Prairie witches and their entire lore. The parts that I did not like all centered around Dell and Cleo. Dell was such a flat character most of the time that I really got annoyed with her. The long passages about Dell and basketball really pulled me out of the story in a very bad way. I did not care at all. Also, the completely dropped mystery of her mother’s murder left me wanting. As for Cleo, I just could not believe that a single Black woman in 1930s Nebraska could really join the community that easily. It really stretched my belief in this story. While I had mixed feelings about the book, I ended up enjoyed most of it. Cannot wait until tonight’s book club meet to discuss!
Next up on the TBR pile:
