This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with Karen Russell, author of The Antidote (Alfred A. Knopf), her sophomore novel. The two talk about soil ecology, developing caretaking relationships, her home state (Florida), her first novel, Swamplandia! (Vintage Books), and more.
This conversation has been edited for time.
About the book:
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.
About Karen:
Karen Russell is the author of six works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has received two National Magazine Awards for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, the 2023 Bottari Lattes Grinzane prize, the 2024 Mary McCarthy Award, and was selected for the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” prize and The New Yorker‘s “20 under 40” list (She is now decisively over 40). She has taught literature and creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of California-Irvine, Williams College, Columbia University, and Bryn Mawr College, and was the Endowed Chair of Texas State’s MFA program. She serves on the board of Street Books, a mobile-library for people living outdoors. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, son, and daughter.
Mentioned in this episode:
“Proving Up,” a short story collected in Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (Vintage Books)
Wicked, a novel written by Gregory Maguire (William Morrow; HarperCollins), adapted for Broadway by composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and librettist Winnie Holzman; then adapted to film, in two parts, directed by M. Jon Chu
James Riding In, citizen and historian of the Pawnee Nation, who penned the land acknowledgement at the end of The Antidote
Broc Anderson, Nebraska historian and researcher
Cherrie Beam-Callaway, Nebraska historian and storyteller
Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks, photographers who inspired Cleo, a character in The Antidote
Pawnee Seed Preservation Project
Art Tanderup, member of the “Cowboy and Indian Alliance,” which consists of ranchers and farmers, environmental activists, and Indigenous land protectors, who successfully came together to stop the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline from carrying toxic fuels through their land
Reconciliation Rising, a multimedia project and podcast
Karen Russell recommends:
The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance by Rebecca Clare (Viking Books)
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Vintage Books)
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage Books)
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House Books)
Lauren Korn recommends:
The writing of Karen Russell, esp. The Antidote (Alfred A. Knopf); and Swamplandia!, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, and St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Vintage Books)
Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk (Soft Skull Press)
Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming (Island Press) and The Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America by Liz Carlisle (Avery, Penguin Random House)
The Blue Plate: A Food Lover's Guide to Climate Chaos by Mark Easter (Patagonia Books)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Random House)
Beautyland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Parakeet (Picador USA) by Marie-Helene Bertino
The fiction of Helen Oyeyemi, esp. Mr. Fox, Boy Snow Bird, and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Riverhead Books)
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The Write Question team is Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, Montana, a literary and community resource for the Bitterroot Valley—providing space to explore, discover, and share passions since 1974. More information can be found at Chapter1Bookstore.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
