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A Novel
by Caoilinn Hughes
Book Reviewed by:From the writer Anthony Doerr calls "a massive talent," the story of four brilliant Irish sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the oldest disappears into the Irish countryside.
The Flattery sisters were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in tragic circumstances. Now in their thirties—all single, all with PhDs—they are each attempting to do meaningful work in a rapidly foundering world. The four lead disparate, distanced lives, from classrooms in Connecticut to ritzy catering gigs in London's Notting Hill, until one day their oldest sister, a geologist haunted by a terrible awareness of the earth's future, abruptly vanishes from her work and home. Together for the first time in years, the Flatterys descend on the Irish countryside in search of a sister who doesn't want to be found. Sheltered in a derelict bungalow, they reach into their common past, confronting both old wounds and a desperately uncertain future.
Warm, fiercely witty, and unexpectedly hopeful, The Alternatives is an unforgettable portrait of a family perched on our collective precipice, told by one of Ireland's most gifted storytellers.
One stormy night, Olwen leaves her life behind, disappearing without a trace or explanation of any kind. After several months of hearing nothing from her, the other three sisters take time out from their careers to reunite in Ireland and try to find her. Unusual, thoughtful, and erudite, The Alternatives is a sprawling and densely packed novel encompassing a broad spectrum of themes: environmentalism, displacement, immigration, integration, interconnection, political upheaval, mental health, social care; also fate, free will, nature, and nurture. Albeit meanderingly, the novel chronicles with poignancy the journeys of the Flattery sisters toward recovery, reflexivity, and learning to cope as well as care...continued
Full Review
(692 words)
(Reviewed by Jo-Anne Blanco).
In Caoilinn Hughes' The Alternatives, Olwen is a geologist profoundly concerned with the effects of climate change. As in other sciences, women remain underrepresented in geology, even though they have been very much part of its development over the centuries.
St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a scholar of precious stones, to which she referred in her theological and scientific writings. Martine de Bertereau (1600-1642) traveled with her husband to survey mines, used divining rods to locate minerals and water deposits, and was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft, tragically dying in prison. Nevertheless, women geologists persisted, and the 19th century saw an increase in female scientists for whom this area of study became a ...
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I wish I knew how Caoilinn Hughes has managed to write a book of such depth and gravity that is also so gripping and relentlessly funny. A tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, a chronicle of our collective follies, a requiem for our agonizing species, The Alternatives unfolds in a prose full of gorgeous surprises and glows with intelligence, compassion, and beauty.
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