Palaces of the Crow

A meditation on morality and mortality, this sharp speculative WWII drama from Hugo Award winner Nayler (Tusks of Extinction) pits four young refugees against a host of hostiles, with their only aid coming from a murder of hyperintelligent crows. Neriya, a Jewish girl whose family summers in the Lithuanian countryside, is led away from the village by her best friend, Buster the crow, to escape the oncoming German invasion. Joining her in the woods are Czeslaw, a Polish man who defected from the Russian army; Kezia, a Roma woman who witnessed the murder of her family; and a nonspeaking young boy whose name the others do not know. Together, they try to survive in the forest despite the seesaw battles of frontline soldiers and backwoods partisans, relying on one another’s skills and help from their unexpected avian allies. Nayler weaves a tapestry of resilience and resistance as intricate and well-constructed as the braided twigs of a crow’s nest. In his compassionate hands, the distinction between human and animal blurs as, together, both groups thrive better than either could alone. It’s an impassioned paean to togetherness even in the midst of the chaotic isolation of war and to the power of storytelling to keep memory and hope alive. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Co. (May)