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The Flattery sisters were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in tragic circumstances. Now in their thirties, Olwen and her three younger sisters – each single, each with a PhD – are leading disparate, distanced lives. Until one day Olwen, a geologist haunted by a terrible awareness of the earth’s future, abruptly vanishes from her home. Together for the first time in years, her siblings descend on the Irish countryside in search of a sister who doesn’t want to be found. In a derelict bungalow they reach into their common past, confronting both old wounds and a desperately uncertain future. Fiercely witty, original and profound, The Alternatives is an unforgettable portrait of a family perched on our collective precipice, told by one of Ireland’s most gifted storytellers.
CAOILINN HUGHES is an Irish writer whose second novel, The Wild Laughter (2020) won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award 2021, was longlisted for the 2021 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize and was shortlisted for three other awards. Her first novel, Orchid & the Wasp (2018), won the Collyer Bristow Prize 2019, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for four other awards. Her poetry book, Gathering Evidence (2014) won the Irish Times Shine/Strong Award. Her short stories have been awarded the Moth Short Story Prize, the Irish Book Awards’ Story of the Year, and an O. Henry Prize. She has been Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and is currently a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library for 2023-2024.