The Antidote

‘Karen Russell is one in a million’ New York Times

From the Pulitzer shortlisted author, an astounding novel about magic, memory and land set America’s Dust Bowl.

Visit The Antidote of Uz – a prairie witch who can keep your memories safe. Speak into her emerald-green earhorn, and your secrets, your shames, your private joys, will leave your mind and enter hers.

But after the great dust storm that flattens wheatfields, buries houses and kills a newlywed couple just a few feet from their car, the Antidote wakes up empty – as bankrupt as America. If her customers ever find out, her life will be in danger.

To the Antidote’s surprising defence come a farmer, his basketball-playing niece and a Black photographer with her time-travelling camera. Apart, they run from the memories that have brought them to this lonely brink. Together, they face down the tornado coming their way.

The Antidote is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting – theft, dispossession, wilful blindness, passed on generation to generation. The Dust Bowl echo with warnings of our own time, daring to challenge us with what might have been – and what still could be.

‘A brilliant writer with an amazing imagination’ The Times

***Shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction***

'Powerful' Financial Times
'A pure dust storm of utter genius' DAISY JOHNSON
As profound as it is wonderfully strange LAUREN GROFF

What do we choose to remember and what do we allow ourselves to forget?

Visit the Antidote of Uz a prairie witch who can keep your memories safe. Speak into her emerald-green earhorn, and your secrets, your shames, your private joys, will leave your mind and enter hers.

Until the Black Sunday storm, which flattens wheatfields, buries houses and vaporizes every memory stored inside the Antidote. She wakes up empty as bankrupt as America. If her customers ever discover the truth, her life will be in danger.

To the Antidote s surprising defence comes Asphodel young tearaway, girls basketball captain and aspiring prairie witch who won t take no for an answer. Along with her Polish wheat-farmer uncle and a New Deal photographer with an enchanted camera, they must confront what has cursed this town: its land on the brink of ruin and its people on the edge of starvation. Apart, they run from the memories that have brought them here. Together, they face down the storm coming their way.

The Antidote is above all a reckoning with a nation s forgetting the wilful omissions passed down from generation to generation. This gripping Dust Bowl epic echoes with urgent warnings for our own time, daring us to imagine what might have been and what still could be.

Russell has rendered with soul and urgency the vast inexpressible ache at the heart of American gratitude KAVEH AKBAR
Karen Russell is one in a million New York Times
'This novel swept me up and carried me away' TOMMY ORANGE

• | Author: Karen Russell
• | Publisher: Random House
• | Publication Date: Mar 13, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language: eng
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781784745646
• | ISBN-10: 1784745642