The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis is a deeply weird and original graphic novel that follows the story of Scarper Lee, a boy with only three weeks left to live, who is unexpectedly joined by the mischievous Vera Pike and the intelligent Castro Smith on a journey to find answers and save Scarper. The book presents a dark, disturbing, whimsical, and weird world full of kitchen gods, shiny brass dads, and knife rain storms. The plot is equal parts fun and tragic, set in a bleak and terrifying world that mirrors and mocks modern society through well-constructed metaphors.
The writing style of The Motherless Oven is profoundly unsettling yet captivating, with a strong sense of love, purpose, and humanity woven throughout the narrative. The story slowly unfolds, leading readers through a broken and mysterious place where patterns and rules emerge, even if extreme and senseless. The book ends on a cliffhanger, leaving readers eager for more answers in the sequels.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The book features themes of mortality and existential questions that may be unsettling to some readers.
From The Publisher:
In Scarper Lee's world, parents don't make children-children make parents. Scarper's father is his pride and joy, a wind-powered brass construction with a billowing sail. His mother is a Bakelite hairdryer. In this world it rains knives, and household appliances have souls. There are also no birthdays-only deathdays. Scarper's deathday is just three weeks away, and he clings to the mundane repetition of his life at home and high school for comfort. Rob Davis's dark graphic novel is an odyssey through a bizarre, distorted teenage landscape. When Scarper's father mysteriously disappears, he sets off with Vera Pike (the new girl at school) and Castro Smith (the weirdest kid in town) to find him. Facing home truths and knife storms at every turn, will Scarper even survive until his deathday?
What can you read after
The Motherless Oven?
About the Author:
Rob Davis is best known for reinventing Roy of the Rovers and for drawing Judge Dredd. He has written and illustrated Doctor Who and adapted H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" for The Lovecraft Anthology, Volume 1 (SelfMadeHero, Spring 2012). The first volume of his graphic-novel adaptation of Don Quixote was shortlisted in the Best Book category at the British Comic Awards. He lives in Blandford Forum, UK.
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