This book is a complex of stories, characters and places. what you see is not always what you get.

Told from three points of view (with a few other short ones thrown in), the reader learns about the land and people of Uz, Nebraska in the late '30s, during the dust bowl. You …more learn about harp Oletsky, a pretty straight forward guy, his niece, asphodel, a teenager (need i say more?) and Antonina Rossi, also know as "the antidote", a prairie witch.
what's a prairie witch? in this book, she is someone who listens to your most horrible secrets (deposits) after which you cannot remember them. everyone has things they wish they could forget: things done, things seen, even things thought. while reading the book the reader gets to discover these secrets and thus unmask the people who hold them.

In 1935, we experience the Black Sunday dust storm as well as the flooding of the Republican river when 24 inches of rain fell within 24 hours. we also learn how land was stolen from the native inhabitants and how they were mistreated and abused.
the novel flows between fantasy and reality so seamlessly that the boundary lines separating them disappear. looking back on history, it is often difficult to believe that really happened.

I started "Swamplandia" when it came out and did not finish it. I'm not sure i would have finished "the antidote" either if i hadn't promised to write a review. but i am glad i did. the characters are well drawn and engaging even if not likable and the historical parts of the novel are worth learning about and remembering. Russell has a way with words, that is for sure. how do you not contemplate phrases like, "i don't know how to want what i can get", or "A seed is a funny little casket. Bury it, and something springs to life." (less)

Honor is a perfect book for book clubs. with many challenging themes, such as cultural and religious differences and prejudices, sexism, the question of western superiority and more, discussions are likely to be both lively and lengthy.

the main plot deals with the violent …more animosity that exists between Muslims and Hindus, resulting in a horrific crime and prompting the main character, a journalist, to return to India, the country she and her family had fled 14 years prior.

Unfortunately, the characters in this story are more central casting than creative innovations. the sub-plots are fairly predictable and often test the credulity of the reader. too often the dialogue seemed plot-driven rather than character based, as if the author needed to make her point, regardless of whether the words spoken were an honest reflection of the person speaking them.

Despite these drawbacks, Honor is an easy book to read and one that makes you think, never a quality to be discounted. (less)

Reading "one's company" is not unlike (I imagine) slowly, but steadily, descending into madness. The reader is given a tour through the mind of someone losing their grip on a reality that may not even be real. Being transported between the before and after (a specific event) …more , we are privileged to listen to the inner thoughts of someone on the edge. If this is not disturbing enough, many of those thoughts, ideas and desires are ones that we have had ourselves.
The author invites us into a world we both recognize and are frightened or repulsed by. Throughout the whole, there is the sense that this story, this person is absurd. But is she? (less)