This Week, I'm Reading...
The Antidote, by Karen Russell
First of all, thank you all for the great comments and recommendations following my Sunday post! I need to take some time to log all of your suggestions into my StoryGraph account. And now, ironically or not, I have a novel to tell you about. It has taken awhile for The Antidote to gain traction with me, but now I’m on page 130 (of 401) and I’m in it for the full read. Part of the slow start is probably on me, not having given it the attention a new book requires in the first 100 pages. Part of it is also, no doubt, related to what I wrote about on Sunday. Russell, perhaps best remembered for her bestselling Florida novel Swamplandia!, knows what she’s doing as a writer. I trust her—which is more than I can say of fiction writers today in general and, clearly, also part of my problem with fiction that I didn’t even touch on last weekend. The more reading years I have behind me, the tougher a critic I’ve become, and I think I may be entering every book by a writer I haven’t read before with the attitude that they have to earn my trust, whereas earlier trust was a given until, on occasion, it was lost. Anyway, I trust Russell. Her sentences are well-crafted, her characters are growing some flesh on their bones, she’s telling a story. It happens to be set in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl. It has all of the elements I told you I’m looking for. The “Antidote” of the title is a person—a “prairie witch” who receives people’s memories, both the joyful and the troubling, and stores them so people can go about their business and come back to the “vault” to withdraw them later. An intriguing idea. The trouble is, the prairie witch seems to have lost her powers. Add in an orphaned teenage girl who plays a mean game of basketball and her stoic farmer uncle and you have your trio of protagonists. Now things are starting to happen. I wish I could tell you I can’t put this novel down, but under my cranky fiction reading circumstances, I can say at least (and only 1/4 of the way in) that I’m reading on!
What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comment section below.
Sounds fascinating - just put it on hold at the library - one of my kids (back when I was teaching) called it the Omniary - I loved that! This week I'm reading *Night Magic: Adventures among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and other Marvels of the Dark* - Also *Elatsoe* (Darcie Little Badger) for the IAIS Book Group) and *Where Wolves Don't Die* (Anton Treuer).
I’m Reading and enjoying Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray. It’s a story about an obscure female in our history who was a fighter for human rights and worked alongside FDR to champion the underdog. It’s very informative and well written! Kudos to these authors for bringing these women to life.