I was struck by how much the world of literary fiction has changed in the decade and a half since the New York Times praised Swamplandia! as a ‘wave-making debut’

Karen Russell's new novel, The Antidote , is set in 1935 Nebraska .

Russell 's first novel, Swamplandia ! was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 .

Russell received a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2013 .

The novel is set between two equally biblical real-life events: Black Sunday and the Republican River Flood .

The Antidote is how many of its features, like those of Swamplandia ! no longer feel like novelties because they have been so thoroughly captured by YA .

The novel’s characters break down along a Marvel Comic Universe axis of good and evil, which makes them both unbelievable and not very interesting.