Published in paperback 6th February 2025 by Oneworld.
From the cover of the book:
OLWEN. NELL. MAEVE. RHONA. MEET THE FLATTERY SISTERS.Olwen, Nell, Maeve and Rhona were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in a tragic twist of fate. Now in their thirties, the sisters barely speak, each too busy carving out impressive careers. But when Olwen – reluctant matriarch, lodestar and, of late, zealous consumer of gin – abruptly disappears, her sisters are cast back together to find her, whether she likes it or not.
When they eventually track Olwen down, she is holed up in a remote bungalow in rural Ireland, with little electricity and a patchy connection to the outside world. Together for the first time in years, the sisters vie to confront old wounds and diagnose new ills – most urgently, Olwen's.
Fiercely witty and unexpectedly hopeful, The Alternatives is an unforgettable portrait of a family perched on a precipice, told by one of Ireland's most gifted storytellers.
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Olwen, Nell, Maeve, and Rhona Flattery are four sisters who had to grow up fast when the tragic death of their parents left them orphans - especially the eldest, Olwen. Each has gone on to become an expert in their chosen field of study, making them a family of venerated PhD holders - Olwen as a geology lecturer; Rhona as a political activist; Maeve as a published chef exploring sustainable options; and the youngest, Nell, as a philosophy lecturer in the USA.
But despite the success they have garnered in their careers, their private lives are somewhat messy. When Olwen decides to up and leave her home, husband, step-children, and career behind by disappearing into the night on her bicycle, her sisters are shocked. She has always been the most grounded amongst them, and even though they have not seen each other for years, they feel her absence. The only thing to be done is for them to reunite and try to find her...
This is an unconventional novel in style, unfurling through the separate points of view of each of the sisters in the first third to give a glimpse of where they are at in their lives at the time of Olwen's disappearance, before morphing into a play script once they locate Olwen at her remote hideaway in the Irish countryside. This really threw me at first, but it works perfectly in terms of the quiet, but stirring themes of reconciliation, forgiveness, and finding a way to negotiate tricky futures in a hopeful state of mind, that Hughes explores in this story.
Essentially, each of the sisters has reached a point in their lives where they can only move forward by coming to terms with the past, and Olwen's disappearance is the catalyst for them to come together and address the emotional baggage they have carried since the family tragedy of their childhood. The first part of the novel paints an intimate picture of their personal and professional lives: Olwen suddenly finding herself at odds with the direction she has chosen; Rhona questioning the demands of her career now she is a single mother; Maeve caught between pursuing her own ethical agenda and the one which supports her financially; and Nell troubled by mysterious symptoms of an undiagnosed illness.
Hughes throws them together in a way which has them confronting the barriers between each other, and the ones which stand in the way of the lives they want to be living, and the play format concentrates beautifully on the conversations that happen as they work through all their knotty issues. Their conversations are full of relatable moments of every day life in an odd situation, with alternating moments of harmony and discord, which I very much enjoyed. You find yourself caught up in the dissecting of past actions, current dilemmas, and future possibilities in a way that pulls you completely into their lives, simply by concentrating on their dialogue. It is very clever.
There are a lot of weighty intellectual themes discussed throughout the novel, as befits such a high achieving set of siblings, some of which went over my head when it comes to politics and philosophy. My favourite parts were definitely those about Maeve's views on sustainability and food, and in Olwen's passion for geology and environmental issues, but there is a lovely overarching theme about looking at alternative ways of living and taking stock of the legacy of the past that is reflected in all their voices, opinions, and aspirations that is very striking - and is echoed nicely in the book's title.
I suspect this will be a slice of rich literary fiction that divides the crowd. There are moments of fathomless emotional poignancy cheek-by-jowl with sparkling scenes oozing delicious wit, conversations riddled with savage barbs standing side-by-side with those of playful banter, absurdly comic vignettes juxtaposing tender acts which pierce your heart, and the way the novel flips between them is certainly disorienting at times - especially given the high-brow ideas that weave amongst it all. However, there is something magical about the way Hughes puts them all together to create a compelling story that drops in on the lives of the Flattery sisters, and then simply leaves them to face the future with hope in their hearts. I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come.
The Alternatives is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Oneworld for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Caoilinn Hughes is the author of THE WILD LAUGHTER (2020), which won the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award, was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was a finalist for three other awards. Her first novel, ORCHID & THE WASP (2018) won the Collyer Bristow Prize, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and was a finalist for four other awards. Her short fiction won the Irish Book Awards' Story of the Year, The Moth Short Story Prize, and an O.Henry Prize. She has been Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and a Cullman Center Fellow at New York Public Library. THE ALTERNATIVES is her third novel.
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