OF DUST AND DREAMS

KARENRUSSELL’S SECONDNOVEL, THE ANTIDOTE, PUBLISHED BY KNOPF IN MARCH, EXAMINES A DARK CHAPTER OF AMERICA’S PAST, BUT NOT WITHOUT HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.

BRIAN GRESKO

Karen Russell’s new novel, The Antidote, was born of a single image: A woman holds a sparkling emerald-green horn to her ear through which she receives someone’s secret and stores it for them, as if she were a living, breathing bank, a vault of flesh and bone safeguarding the memories of others. Russell was writing her debut novel, Swamplandia!, when this witch appeared to her in 2009. Two years later, Swamplandia! (Knopf), a New York Times best-seller, was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, adding to the young author’s already impressive accolades—among them a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” award and a spot on the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list. Far from idling on these laurels, Russell’s prodigious imagination was already spinning her follow-up,…

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Poets & Writers (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2025

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