Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that
era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a
young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. Over the course of the
novel he suffers a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine
love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the
unprecedented experiences of the war itself.