The Alternatives
By Caoilinn Hughes
Riverhead, April 16, 2024
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 under 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.
Selected Praise
“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.” —Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust
“Caoilinn Hughes is one of the most intelligent, surprising, and delightful writers around. The Alternatives made me laugh, cry, and think. Any one of the Flattery sisters would have made a compelling story; together they are glorious, as is this novel.” —Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
“Caoilinn Hughes’s beautiful new novel uses a fairy-tale premise—four sisters, orphaned in their youth, each brilliant in her own way—to explore some of the most pressing issues of our time: the environment, politics, and how to live in the world. The Alternatives is both a book of ideas and a gripping read, formally audacious yet deeply humane. Superb.”—Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
About the Author
Caoilinn Hughes was born in Galway and lives on Ireland’s west coast. She is the author of Orchid & the Wasp, which won the Collyer Bristow Prize and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Wild Laughter, won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award and was longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. She is the Oscar Wilde Centre Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.