Dunmore, in an interview on BBC R4’s Open Book shortly before her death commented of the novel: “I think of what is the mark that any human being leaves behind, which when you are very ill you’re bound to think about. Published before her death from cancer in 2017 it contains many of the themes that suffuse her novels love, family, identity and what legacy we bequeath to later generations. Described by Kate Kellaway in a glowing review for The Guardian as 'the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written', Birdcage Walk was also Dunmore’s last.

A stirring and visceral exploration of women’s lives in Georgian Britain, Birdcage Walk considers the traces we leave through history when we die through the voices of women who dared to think beyond the confines of their time. In a tense drama of public and private violence, resistance and terror, Diner's passion for Lizzie darkens until she finds herself dangerously alone. She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants. Diner believes that Lizzie's independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. Soon his plans for a magnificent terrace built above the two-hundred-foot drop of the Gorge come under threat. But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol's housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism. It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence. Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for August (2017) ‘Like all great writers who pass too young, her readers will long for the books that might have been but alongside these regrets lies a gratitude for a life spent in literature and the wonderful books that she gave us over a quarter of a century of dedicated and prolific writing.’ – John Boyne I liked Birdcage Walk, especially late at night, when darkness and the rustle of nocturnal creatures gave an edge to the safety of the paved path.

Birdcage walk book review