In the wake of an unspecified blight that has overtaken the Earth, a particularly rich family decides to create clones of themselves and their friends so that the human race can continue until traditional reproduction works again. 
 Questions that I was interested in this set-up answering that didn't get answered: 
 1) an examination of how all of these white people didn't think to invite other cultures or peoples into their little cloning project 
 2) how the weird selfishness of that choice effects the first and second generation of clones and also the wider culture of the compound 
 What happens instead is that the clones decide that they want to stay clones (sort of- they have a breeder class that is sequestered away from the rest and subjected to cruel treatment) and kill or ship off any original models because the clones think of themselves as a new species. They do in fact have some qualities of a new species (even though the book never explains how this happened). Clones that come from the same person hold a kind of psychic bond that lets them know when the others are in trouble, but also suffers greatly when they are apart for more than a day. 
 On their first trip away from the compound, the group that goes becomes fundamentally altered by their distance from the group and become outsiders to this group mentality. What follows is a push and pull between individuality and community that leads to the destruction of the compound and a new start for humanity as we know it. 
 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is trying to ask what makes us fundamentally human, but it falters because the new group-mentality clones are painted as cruel and strange right from the start. Questions about humanity become moot because they don't consider themselves human. I was disappointed in this one because I kept imagining a version of this book where each side was equally right morally and logistically but had different goals in mind. For me, that would have made this a way more interesting read. Instead, I'm left not really caring about any of these people because they're all equally horrible in different ways.