Caoilinn Hughes – The Alternatives (2024)
A cleverly composed family novel about care and climate.
April 2025 • Fiction
I first read something by Caoilinn Hughes last winter when The Paris Review published Two Hands, her short story about Gemma and Des. They take a driving lesson after a car accident that left their Italian Fiat Panda totalled and Gemma in tatters. They're there to build up confidence, Gemma says, not quite sure whose she means. The story made me snicker and laugh on multiple occasions—the first time at this bit:
“But having a wrong-sided vehicle also meant that the only way to navigate the country roads, with all their ditherments, was to have a passenger in the car always, pressing their cheek to the side window, telling the driver, Yeah, you’re fine, or, Plunge into the thicket for the love of jeeezus.”
Her writing has a kind of jazzy musicality to it, can be incredibly funny, and is imbued with that cool kind of carelessness, or effortlessness rather, that comes with total control. The way she describes situations and unfolds her dialogue, she puts you right there with them, right in the midst of it. I found it very impressive and picked up her latest novel, The Alternatives, soon after.
The book follows the Flattery sisters: Rhona, Maeve, Nell and Olwen, three of whom have Ph.D. degrees. Rhona is a professor of political science, Maeve is an Instagram-famous chef and author of cookbooks, and Nell a celibate philosophy professor. Olwen is a professor of geology and a high-functioning alcoholic (gin and rhubarb is her drink of choice). One day, she disappears, cycling away from her life, seemingly deliberately, not wanting to be found, in search of solitude.
The four of them grew up orphaned after their parents tumbled off a cliff (relatives moved in and out, but they preferred “unsupervised sadness"), and haven't seen each other in a few years. They get wind of Olwen's departure, and when Rhona locates her hiding place months later (this is not a spoiler, I promise), they reunite to (perhaps) save her, driving up to County Leitrim in the north of Ireland in Rhona's Tesla, accompanied by her baby, Leo.
Hughes starts the novel off by giving each of the sisters a chapter or two, allowing us to get to know them and the worlds they've created for themselves. She then introduces the structure of a two-act play. By then we're in the thick of it, with all four sisters dancing around each other's quirks at Olwen's hideout. The shift—after readjusting for a few pages—works surprisingly well as a way of framing their behaviour in each other's company: their petty arguments, their philosophical conversations, and their (cautious, evasive) sisterly bonding.
The Alternatives is a novel about care, for ourselves and for our loved ones. While family dynamics take center stage, there's an undercurrent of climate, too: of care for our planet. It's not spelled out, yet she combines both brilliantly, urging her readers through these characters to care more deeply for the Earth and to connect with friends and family. Once I closed the book, I felt the need to do both.
The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes
Published by Oneworld Publications in 2024
One book recommendation, once per month.
Book #26 • April 2025
