The Antidote

Karen Russell’s The Antidote (2025) blends realistic fiction with elements of the fantastical to present the story of Antonina Rossi, a prairie witch who resides in Dust Bowl-era Nebraska. The novel unfolds between two factual historical events: the “Black Sunday” dust storm of 1935 and the flooding of the Republican River—the result of 24 inches of rainfall in less than 24 hours. In addition to Rossi—who is known by the moniker “the Antidote,” the novel traces the impact of the dust and drought on Harp Oletsky, a local wheat farmer, and his niece, Asphodel “Dell” Oletsky who resides with Harp after her mother is killed. The two, along with the Antidote and a government employee named Cleo Allfrey assigned to photograph the impact of dry farming techniques, find themselves caught up in a quest for justice that forces them to delve into an unpleasant past that has been covered up. Russell incorporates true, historical figures and significant historical events into a fictional world with magical realist elements, probing The Weight of Memory, the meaning of Justice as Righting Past Wrongs, and The Interconnectedness of Humans and Nature.

Russell’s work includes two novels, a novella, and three short story collections, including St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2005). Her novel Swamplandia! (2011) was a New York Times Best Book of the Year and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Other awards include a MacArthur Fellowship; a Guggenheim Fellowship; the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award; the Bard Fiction Prize; and inclusion in The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list.

This guide references the 2025 hardcover by Horizon Books, Knopf.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death by suicide, racism, child abuse, child sexual abuse, pregnancy loss, illness or death, child death, animal cruelty and/or death, sexual content, and graphic violence.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with the historical Black Sunday storm that strikes Nebraska in 1935. The dust permeates everything, making it impossible to see or breathe. Somehow, the farmhouse of Harp Oletsky remains free of dust, suggesting there is something special about it. A prairie witch, called “the Antidote,” returns to her room at the boarding house above the saloon. She is a “Vault,” meaning she stores the memories “deposited” by customers, unburdening them of events they do not wish to recall. On the day of the storm, however, she knows that she has gone bankrupt, losing all of the deposits her customers have entrusted her with. She fears that she will remain bankrupt forever and that her customers will punish her for failing to return their deposited memories. Meanwhile, Harp’s teenage niece, Asphodel “Dell” Oletsky has recently come to live with her uncle after the murder of her mother. Dell’s mother is thought to be one of the victims of a serial killer dubbed the Lucky Rabbit’s Foot Killer, a moniker arising from the rabbit’s foot found at each crime scene. A young, unhoused man named Clemson Louis Dew has been found guilty of the murders and scheduled to be executed by electric chair. The execution, however, was botched as the dust from the Black Sunday storm interfered with the electricity. Dell, though she mourns her mother fiercely, believes Dew to be innocent.

Dell, a passionate basketball player, forges her place amid her new community by dominating the local team. When the coach quits—leaving town like many other families in search of employment—Dell accepts the team’s nomination that she become a player-coach. Determined to secure funds so that the team may continue to play in area tournaments, Dell visits the Antidote and asks to become her apprentice. The Antidote gradually reveals her history—she was forced to live at the Milford Home for Unwed Mothers at the age of 15 and fled after giving birth to a son. Told that the son died shortly after birth, the Antidote—whose real name is Antonina “Toni” Rossi—refuses to believe this is true. She is determined to one day be reunited with her son and has left him clues to find her location. Though she is initially reluctant to take Dell on as an apprentice, she agrees to do so and even commits to Dell’s plan to cope with her lost deposits: Dell will write invented memories to give to customers who come for withdrawals. She terms these invented stories “counterfeits” and dubs herself and the Antidote “the Counterfeiters.” When customers arrive to make deposits, Dell hides in the Antidote’s closet, recording the memories by hand.

Meanwhile, Harp’s land remains untouched by dust, and a strange light appears above his field. His wheat crop flourishes despite the drought, while the rest of the town’s farms continue to yield nothing. His success gets Harp voted the new Grange Master. A young African American photographer named Cleo Allfrey, working with the federal government’s Resettlement Administration—part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal—arrives from the East Coast. Assigned to capture photos of “dry farming” techniques, Cleo soon becomes curious about the success of Harp’s wheat. When her camera is stolen, she finds a new, state-of-the-art one for sale in a pawn shop. As her boss repeatedly rejects the shots she takes—punching holes into the negatives she sends to him—Cleo resigns. With Harp’s permission, she sets up a darkroom in his root cellar.

The Antidote continues to take new deposits and receives a forced one by the sheriff’s deputy, followed by a deposit from the sheriff himself. In his deposit, the sheriff confesses that he planted the rabbits’ feet on the bodies of the murdered victims in order to frame Clemson Louis Dew for the crimes. Dew continues to sit on death row, awaiting execution. However, another murdered woman, Mink Petrusev, has been discovered. The sheriff forced his deputy to help him bury her body in order to conceal it and prevent the town from realizing that Dew is innocent. As the date for his reelection approaches, the sheriff does not wish to burden himself with the memory of his crime. The news troubles the Antidote, however, and she flees her home at the boarding house. Fearful of the power the sheriff wields, she seeks refuge at the Oletsky farm.

There, Cleo Allfrey has made a surprising discovery: The new camera has the ability to capture scenes taking place on the land in the past and in the future. They reveal scenes of the native Pawnee who farmed the land decades prior. Cleo is uncertain whether the photos that depict the future reveal the definitive future or a possible future that humans might alter. This information about the past is further complicated when Harp, armed with a deposit slip of his father’s that Dell has found in the house, seeks out a vault a few towns over. Harp withdraws his father’s memory from the vault: It details his father’s emigration from Poland to Nebraska, ending with a lie his father started in order to prevent Pawnees from encroaching on valuable farmland controlled by Whites. His lie, the withdrawal reveals, led to the murders of many Pawnee.

Harp becomes certain that the group must not only convince the townsfolk to somehow right this wrong done to the Pawnee in the past but also expose the false conviction of Clemson Louis Dew. Armed with the photographic evidence of the sheriff’s crime, the group makes plans to reveal this proof on Founder’s Day, in conjunction with the speech that Harp will give as the Grange Master.

The event initially proceeds as planned: Cleo and Dell unveil a display of Cleo’s photographs, many of them depicting scenes of the Pawnee people in the past. When Harp gives his speech, however, the sentiments shifts when he accuses the sheriff of framing Clemson Louis Dew and of burying the body of Mink Petrusev. A riot breaks out, and gunshots are fired at Harp. Amid the fight and ensuing chaos, the sheriff sneaks out. Harp sneaks under a table, then blacks out.

When Harp comes to, he is stunned to find the room empty. Outside, the town has gathered amid a rain storm. The mood is temporarily buoyant, but then the citizens attempt to retaliate against Harp and the others once again. They flee, but the sheriff arrives at Harps’ farm soon after. He shoots at the group, but shatters Cleo’s camera instead before being scared off by the light above Harp’s field. As he drives off, a tornado approaches from the distance.

The group survives the tornado in the root cellar, but Harp’s house and wheat crop are destroyed. Antonina emerges to find that the scarecrow—that had survived the Black Sunday storm—has been ripped apart as well. She feels the scarecrow beckoning her and knows that her son is communicating to her through it. She absorbs her son’s life story from the scarecrow, learning that he has indeed died, not at birth but in a car accident.