The Alternatives: A Family’s Journey Through Loss and Reunion
- DA
- July 1, 2024
- Edited 3 weeks ago
Table of Contents
The Alternative
The Flattery sisters, four brilliant and very different girls, raised in a small town south of Dublin, were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in a tragic accident. Olwen Flattery, a thirty-something academic, is a geologist in Galway. Rhona, the second sister, is a political scientist at Trinity College, Dublin, who lives in a “well-heeled enclave” of Dublin with her baby son Leo and a Peruvian postdoc-cum-nanny.
The third sister, Maeve, is a chef and star of social media, living in London and concerned with food shortages in the wake of Brexit. The youngest, Nell, a philosopher and academic, juggles three university jobs in Connecticut on a work visa without health insurance, while dealing with a condition that has left her with no feeling in her feet.
The four lead disparate lives, from classrooms in Connecticut to fancy gigs in London’s Notting Hill, until their oldest sister, the geologist, haunted by a terrible awareness of the earth’s future, abruptly vanishes from her home.
Together for the first time in years, the other three sisters descend on the Irish countryside in search of a sister who doesn’t really want to be found. Sheltered in a derelict, rural bungalow, coaxed along by colorful denizens of a local pub, the sisters reach into their common past, confronting both old wounds and a desperately uncertain future.
For the sisters’ reunion, the narrative style changes to the form of a play, with scene setting and dialogue. This abrupt change works, effectively lending an immediacy and enhanced realism to the initial conversations, reactions, and interactions when they are all together again.
Overall, The Alternatives is a brilliant, brainy book about the bravery of following one’s own path while also remembering the value of community.
“Caroline Hughes is one of the most intelligent, surprising, and delightful writers around. The Alternatives made me laugh, cry, and think that any one of the Flatterys would have made a compelling story. Together, they are glorious, as is this novel,” says Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses (previously reviewed in this column).
A TOP SHELF read.
● Terrence Kenneally is an attorney and teacher of Irish Literature and History at Elyria Catholic High School.
