With echoes of both Orwell’s Animal Farm and Richard Adams’ Watership Down, The Mob visits the world as we know it, but being run from a bird’s eye perspective, by clans of crows. Their beliefs and politics rule the roost until a mob seeks revenge and life in crow world will never be the same again. The whole plot is cleverly orchestrated and well-written but will the crows will to survive rather than fight to the death see the survival of the world?
It's springtime - hundreds of crows set out on their yearly migration and converge at the Gathering Tree. This sacred Gathering is an opportunity for the six crow Clans of the Family Kinaar to assemble, to make decisions and to celebrate being together. But when young blood is lost, sacred laws are tested as an illegal Mob seeks revenge, and a schism threatens the unity of the flock. The Family's situation is made yet more precarious when a severe blizzard hits and the Crows are faced with the dilemma of where to find shelter. Breaking age-old decrees and working together may offer their only chance of survival. Here, is a startling view of the world from a bird's-eye perspective, complete with its own set of beliefs, mythologies and politics. But it's a world familiar to us too - where the needs of the individual often clash with those of the group, and where the desire to be free must be tempered with the need to be safe, to survive.
Clem Martini is a playwright and screenwriter who has written for both adults and young people. A professor of drama at the University of Calgary, he is a three-time winner of the Alberta Writer's Guild Drama Prize and was a Govenor General's Award nominee. The Mob is his first novel.
Clem was born in Calgary, Alberta, and lives there with his wife and two daughters.
The Crow Chronicles is his first series for Bloomsbury.
