The Antidote
The Antidote is a novel by Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Set in a Dust Bowl town in Nebraska during the 1930s, the book centers on a so-called Prairie Witch, a woman who serves as a human vault, storing the memories and secrets that townspeople wish to forget. When the great Black Sunday dust storm erases her stored deposits, the town's hidden history begins to surface. Russell weaves together several characters, including a basketball star, a New Deal photographer, and a scarecrow, to explore American memory, land, and the cost of forgetting. Blending historical detail with magical realism in Russell's distinctive style, the novel was published in 2025 and reflects her ongoing interest in folklore and the strange edges of American life.
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What you might want to know about The Antidote
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Set in Dust Bowl Nebraska, a novel follows a woman who stores other people's memories and the townspeople whose past she holds.
It was written by Karen Russell, the author of Swamplandia! and the story collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.
It is set in a fictional Dust Bowl town in Nebraska during the 1930s, around the Black Sunday dust storm.
The Antidote is 419 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Antidote takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
The Antidote is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.