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oliviasbooktalk 's review for:
The Antidote
by Karen Russell
Thank you for Knopf for the gifted copy and PRH Audio for the audiobook copy.
With an unsuspecting group—a prairie witch, a high school girl and her farmer uncle, a scarecrow, a photographer—in Nebraska face climate emergencies, we take a deep dive into collective memory, the weight of our actions, and small town politics. All of the Prairie Witches who are “vaults”, and possess the ability to take and store memories from people who no longer want to bear those burden, can no longer access their archives. What happens when memories go missing? Whose stories get lost?
This is a big, sweeping, in-depth novel, so if you’re looking to sink into a stylistically western, historical fiction meets magical realism story, pick this one up. It very much reminded me of THERE ARE RIVES IN THE SKY. But in the Midwest in the 1930s.
One theme that’s stayed with me, from this and from SINNERS as I’ve recently watched it, is the cognitive dissonance felt by white Europeans fleeing their own persecution only to come to America and realize they’ve now joined, unintentionally or otherwise, the oppressive group. How do you reckon with the memories of colonization when you’re just trying to survive?
I keep going back and forth with what I think of this. I loved the depth and writing and want to explore of Russell’s work, but I run into this criticism with almost every big book: was all of it needed? I’m unsure, but I do know that I wish I read it with a group so I could see what others were most impacted by.
For more reviews, follow along on Instagram: @oliviasbooktalk 📚
With an unsuspecting group—a prairie witch, a high school girl and her farmer uncle, a scarecrow, a photographer—in Nebraska face climate emergencies, we take a deep dive into collective memory, the weight of our actions, and small town politics. All of the Prairie Witches who are “vaults”, and possess the ability to take and store memories from people who no longer want to bear those burden, can no longer access their archives. What happens when memories go missing? Whose stories get lost?
This is a big, sweeping, in-depth novel, so if you’re looking to sink into a stylistically western, historical fiction meets magical realism story, pick this one up. It very much reminded me of THERE ARE RIVES IN THE SKY. But in the Midwest in the 1930s.
One theme that’s stayed with me, from this and from SINNERS as I’ve recently watched it, is the cognitive dissonance felt by white Europeans fleeing their own persecution only to come to America and realize they’ve now joined, unintentionally or otherwise, the oppressive group. How do you reckon with the memories of colonization when you’re just trying to survive?
I keep going back and forth with what I think of this. I loved the depth and writing and want to explore of Russell’s work, but I run into this criticism with almost every big book: was all of it needed? I’m unsure, but I do know that I wish I read it with a group so I could see what others were most impacted by.
For more reviews, follow along on Instagram: @oliviasbooktalk 📚