A new novel from Karen Russell is a sprawling story set during the Dust Bowl

Summary

NPR Book of the Day: Karen Russell’s “The Antidote”

Episode Date: December 30, 2025
Host: Scott Simon
Guest: Karen Russell
Theme: Exploring memory, history, and the Dust Bowl through the lens of fiction and photography

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Episode Overview

This episode of NPR's Book of the Day centers on acclaimed novelist Karen Russell and her latest work, The Antidote. Set during the harrowing Dust Bowl era, the novel explores intertwining themes of memory, historical reckoning, and imagination. Russell discusses how photography, especially the legacy of Gordon Parks, influenced the creation of her characters and the novel’s worldview, as well as her aim to envision hopeful futures in literature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting and Narrative Voice

• The novel opens on “Black Sunday,” a pivotal Dust Bowl day in the 1930s, narrated by Antonina Rossi, who wakes up in a jailhouse during an apocalyptic dust storm.
• [01:28] Karen Russell:

  “Before anybody knew to call it Black Sunday, I woke up in the jailhouse to a sound like a freight train tunneling through me… My body trembled like a husk on the cot… I was nothing but the fear of floating off. What had happened to me while I slept? It felt as if a knife had scraped the marrow from my bones. Something vital inside me had liquefied and drained away, and in its place was this new weightlessness.”

2. Dust Bowl Context and Realism

• [02:18] Karen Russell: Describes the Dust Bowl as an era where “apocalyptic clouds of dust… really swallow the sun,” transporting tons of fertile soil even across the country.
• She frames the setting as a product of both environmental disaster and failed agricultural practices, with real-life implications that reached the highest levels of government.

3. Antonina Rossi’s Unique Gift

• Antonina has a supernatural capacity: she “swallows” and stores painful memories for others, who can then retrieve them when needed.
• [03:01] Karen Russell:

  “She has a gift for sort of swallowing the past and holding it in storage for people… this loss... dynamites a space inside her that she is renting out as storage for the memories that people can’t stand to remember or bear to forget.”

• [03:46] Scott Simon draws the analogy to a bank vault, and Russell elaborates that Antonina herself can’t access or know what she contains.

4. Photography and the Character of Cleo Alfrey

• Cleo Alfrey, a fictional photographer inspired by Gordon Parks, is sent to document rural poverty.
• Her magical camera photographs not just the present, but layers of time—yielding images of the past, present, and possible futures.
• [04:56] Karen Russell:

  “Some of the photographs are showing that long before Europeans come to this region, there are other communities, the dozens of native nations that have been successfully living on and with this prairie ecosystem for millennia… she’s also able to conjure both hell worlds, but also… blue skies, places where buffalo are migrating out of the past and into the future.”

5. Influence of Gordon Parks

• Russell attributes much inspiration for Cleo and the novel’s themes to photographer Gordon Parks.
• [05:42] Karen Russell (paraphrasing Parks):

  “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera… We have these things installed in us in birth, and they’re our imaginations. And we can do this incredible thing, conjuring these future worlds that maybe they don’t exist today, but they could, and making those real.”

• Russell aims to emphasize the potential of imagination to “draw other kinds of worlds into focus,” even amid modern bleakness.

6. Memory, History, and Reckoning

• The narrative challenges the notion that the past is safely behind us, depicting how it shapes the present and our possibilities.
• [06:38] Karen Russell:

  “If there’s anything this novel taught me, it’s that the past is certainly not safely in the past. Right. That it really cohabits with the present and continues to shape it… I wanted… to try to envision a future that was not apocalyptic… with shared abundance for all. And… we can’t do that unless we return to our nation’s history and try to reckon with it.”

7. Forgetting as an Antidote?

• Scott Simon raises the idea of “strategic forgetting” as a way to cope with the burdens of memory.
• [07:21] Karen Russell:

  “It’s humbling to write a book about the gaps in people’s memories, while I’m very aware of many in my own. Scott, I don’t think we can hold the entire secret cargo we each carry… It’s not so much about, like, filling in all the holes as sort of illuminating what possibilities and responsibilities we might be missing.”

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Memorable Quotes

• On Black Sunday’s horror:
  Karen Russell, 01:28

  “My fingers clawed into the mattress for those early moments in the dark, I was nothing but the fear of floating off.”

• On Antonina’s gift:
  Karen Russell, 03:01

  “Her baby was taken from her at a home for unwed mothers. And this loss in this novel, it sort of dynamites a space inside her that she is renting out as storage for the memories that people can't stand to remember or bear to forget.”

• On Gordon Parks and imagination:
  Karen Russell, 05:42

  “We have these things installed in us in birth, and they're our imaginations. And we can do this incredible thing, conjuring these future worlds that maybe they don't exist today, but they could, and making those real.”

• On reckoning with history:
  Karen Russell, 06:38

  “The past is certainly not safely in the past. Right. That it really cohabits with the present and continues to shape it.”

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Notable Segments with Timestamps

• Opening excerpt from The Antidote: [01:28-02:04]
• Explanation of Dust Bowl’s impact: [02:18-02:54]
• Antonina's supernatural gift: [03:01-03:42]
• Introduction of Cleo Alfrey, the photographer: [04:26-04:56]
• Gordon Parks’s influence on the novel: [05:42-06:31]
• Reflections on how the past shapes the future: [06:38-07:12]
• Discussion of memory, forgetting, and responsibility: [07:21-07:49]

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Tone & Language

The conversation is thoughtful, poetic, and reflective—much like Russell’s writing style. Both Simon and Russell engage with themes of memory, loss, history, and creative possibility without shying away from complexity but always grounded in human empathy.

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Summary

This episode provides a compelling look into The Antidote’s imaginative world, where memory, photography, and history combine to challenge our present and offer glimpses of alternative futures. Karen Russell’s inspiration from other art forms, notably photography and Gordon Parks’s social vision, infuses her narrative with both weight and hope. The conversation is rich with meditations on what we remember, what we must reckon with, and what we dream possible. For listeners and readers alike, Russell’s words are a call to remember—and to imagine beyond despair.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I love hearing artists talk about being inspired by a medium other than their own. You know, musicians inspired by books, filmmakers inspired by architecture, that sort of thing. On the pod today, Karen Russell, the writer of the hit 2011 novel Swamplandia, talks about being inspired by photography. Her new novel, the Antidote, takes place during the Dust bowl crisis in America. And she talks to NPR's Scott Simon about how the photographer Gordon Parks influenced not just one particular character, but the entire world view of the novel. That's coming up.

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[Scott Simon]

Karen Russell's sprawling new novel begins on a day called Black Sunday. Set during the Dust bowl storms in the 1930s, the story is told by Antonina Rossi on Black Sunday.

[Karen Russell]

Before anybody knew to call it Black Sunday, I woke up in the jailhouse to a sound like a freight train tunneling through me, an ear splitting howl that seemed to shake the stone walls. My body trembled like a husk on the cot. My fingers clawed into the mattress for those early moments in the dark, I was nothing but the fear of floating off. What had happened to me while I slept? It felt as if a knife had scraped the marrow from my bones. Something vital inside me had liquefied and drained away, and in its place was this new weightlessness.

[Scott Simon]

Karen Russell's new novel is called the Antidote, and the celebrated novelist in MacArthur fellow joins us now from Portland, Oregon. Thank you so much for being with us.

[Karen Russell]

Thanks for having me. Scott.

[Scott Simon]

What's happening on this Sunday?

[Karen Russell]

This Sunday begins ordinarily, you know, blue skies around 3pm it looks like it's midnight. There are these apocalyptic clouds of dust that really swallow the sun and sweep hundreds of tons of exposed fertile topsoil across the southern plains. They reach as far as D.C. they famously dump on Congress. This was a stretch of time where these droughts and poor agricultural practices resulted in the dirt raining down, you know, from the heavens.

[Scott Simon]

Tell us about Antonina because she has a she has a gift, if that's quite the way to phrase it, doesn't she?

[Karen Russell]

She does. Antonina was sort of the. The beginning of this novel for me. I got an image when I was finishing my first novel quite a long time ago now of a woman holding an. An ear horn. They look sort of like gramophone horns, these antique hearing aids, while a man was whispering a secret to her and sort of leaving his consciousness and entering her body. So she has a gift for sort of swallowing the past and holding it in storage for people. Her baby was taken from her at a home for unwed mothers. And this loss in this novel, it sort of dynamites a space inside her that she is renting out as storage for the memories that people can't stand to remember or bear to forget.

[Scott Simon]

She puts them in a vault of her subconscious, doesn't she?

[Karen Russell]

Yes, exactly. They're sort of beyond the waterline of her waking consciousness. She herself doesn't even know what these people are whispering to her. And they can come and make withdrawals too. They read their deposits, slip backwards, and it leaves her and re enters them. But she says, just like a vault, she doesn't know what she contains. On the Black Sunday reference, she sort of wakes up in that jailhouse to that terrible weightlessness. Everything she stored for this town for 15 years has been whisked out of her body.

[Scott Simon]

There's a photographer who's dispatched to capture the crisis. Her camera has what I'll call a special sight.

[Karen Russell]

There's a photographer. She's not, you know, she's fictional. Her name is Cleo Alfrey, and she's sent really, to document rural poverty. And with this camera that has special sight, she starts to take pictures that feel inexplicable, of things that seem to be happening on a piece of ground, you know, Maybe yesterday, maybe 500 years in the past, maybe in some hypothetical future.

[Scott Simon]

Her photographs disclose the fact that people were there before people we call immigrants ever got there.

[Karen Russell]

Yes. So some of the photographs are showing that long before Europeans come to this region, there are other communities, the dozens of native nations that have been successfully living on and with this prairie ecosystem for millennia. And so some of what she's seeing is sort of a past world of flourishing. And then she's also sort of able to conjure both hell worlds, but also, you know, blue skies, places where buffalo are kind of migrating out of the past and into the future. And that felt important to me, one of the inspirations for Cleo's character. You know, I learned a lot From Gordon Parks and his books.

[Scott Simon]

Gordon Parks, the great photographer? Yes.

[Karen Russell]

You know, he said two things that really struck me, and one was I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. And I found myself with this particular camera with its unique long range. We have these things installed in us in birth, and they're our imaginations. And we can do this incredible thing, conjuring these future worlds that maybe they don't exist today, but they could, and making those real. And right now, I think it's really easy for a lot of us to extrapolate from what's happening today to a really bleak vision of tomorrow. And so I think part of what I try to do in this book is, is use my imagination to draw other kinds of worlds into focus.

[Scott Simon]

Well, you have a discussion between a couple of locals at one point, and somebody says, it's a shame, but it's over and done with.

[Karen Russell]

Right. And I mean, if there's anything that this novel taught me, it's that the past is certainly not safely in the past. Right. That it really cohabits with the present and continues to shape it. And I really wanted, as I mentioned, to try to envision a future that was not apocalyptic. Right. A future world that felt more just and more peaceful, you know, with shared abundance for all. And to do that, I think we can't do that unless we return to our nation's history and try to reckon.

[Scott Simon]

With it in life. Isn't a certain amount of strategic forgetting the antidote, if you please, to just going on?

[Karen Russell]

Yes. I mean, it's humbling to write a book about the gaps in people's memories, while I'm very aware of many in my own. Scott, I don't think we can hold the entire secret cargo we each carry. It can't always be present to us. Right. And certainly this book isn't a full 360. Right. It's not so much about, like, filling in all the holes as sort of illuminating what possibilities and responsibilities we might be missing.

[Scott Simon]

Karen Russell, her new novel, the Antidote. Thank you so much for being with us.

[Karen Russell]

Thank you, Scott. It was a pleasure.

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