Karen Russell’s Dust Bowl epic The Antidote blows into Kansas City for launch event

Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Fellow Karen Russell presents her latest novel, The Antidote. // Photo by Annette Hornischer

Dust off your calendars! Karen Russell, the bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, will visit Kansas City on Saturday, March 15.

Hosted by Rainy Day Books, Russell will be at Unity Temple on the Plaza to chat about her latest novel, The Antidote, which will be released on March 11.

Set during the Dust Bowl, the novel weaves together the fates of five unforgettable characters, including a “Prairie Witch,” a time-traveling photographer, and a cursed wheat farmer. As a storm rips through the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, secrets are unearthed, history is reckoned with, and survival takes on a whole new meaning.

But The Antidote isn’t just about dust and drought—it’s a reflection on collective memory and the way a nation often forgets its painful past. “This book really pushed me to reconsider the way I was taught this history and the way I held it,” she says. The novel explores collective amnesia and its consequences, both for the characters and for society.

Russell says the book’s themes mirror today’s fragmented reality. “A lot of what I write about felt very resonant with some of what we’ve lived through in recent years,” Russell notes. And in the face of these challenges, The Antidote offers hope. “I wanted to shift out of this sort of benumbed resignation,” Russell says, emphasizing the importance of action and agency. “There’s no magic bullet… but there are thousands of answers, and you can be one of them,” she says.

At its heart, the novel challenges readers to rethink their role in shaping the future. While writing the novel, Russell said she kept in mind a question she knows so many people ask themselves, “What choices do we have?” Russell sees fiction as a way to imagine other possibilities for the world. “Fiction gives people the tools to imagine,” she says. The Antidote is a reminder that even in our darkest moments, change is possible—and it all starts with reimagining what’s possible.

With her upcoming visit, Russell says she’s eager to dive into the themes of The Antidote with audiences. “I’m really excited to hear from people with strong ties to this period in history,” she says.