The Alternatives
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4.1 • 11 Ratings
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
From the writer Anthony Doerr calls 'a massive talent', The Alternatives is the story of four brilliant sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the eldest disappears into the Irish countryside
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A Book of the Year according to The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Good Housekeeping, Readings Australia and Libreria
'Surprising and delightful... The Alternatives made me laugh, cry, and think.' Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Perfect for fans of Jonathan Franzen, Maggie O'Farrell and Claire Vaye Watkins.
OLWEN. NELL. MAEVE. RHONA. MEET THE FLATTERY SISTERS.
Olwen, Nell, Maeve and Rhona were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in a tragic twist of fate. Now in their thirties, the sisters barely speak, each too busy carving out impressive careers. But when Olwen – reluctant matriarch, lodestar and, of late, zealous consumer of gin – abruptly disappears, her sisters are cast back together to find her, whether she likes it or not.
When they eventually track Olwen down, she is holed up in a remote bungalow in rural Ireland, with little electricity and a patchy connection to the outside world. Together for the first time in years, the sisters vie to confront old wounds and diagnose new ills – most urgently, Olwen's.
Fiercely witty and unexpectedly hopeful, The Alternatives is an unforgettable portrait of a family perched on a precipice, told by one of Ireland's most gifted storytellers.
'Bold, witty and intellectual... A book of intelligent women that very successfully plays with form and intertwined big ideas.' Sunday Independent
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A 39-year-old geology professor disappears from her Galway campus, prompting her three sisters to reunite and track her down, in the intelligent if uneven latest from Hughes (The Wild Laughter). When Olwen Flattery was 18, her parents died in an accidental fall from a cliff, and she became legal guardian of her three younger sisters: Maeve, a celebrity chef in London whose recipes Hughes presents as simultaneously silly and delectable (a "fancy fish taco" comprises "red mullet with anchovy-rosemary sauce on a cabbage leaf"); Nell, an adjunct philosophy professor at a Connecticut college; and Rhona, a hard-headed Dublin political scientist. At times, Hughes reaches for dark comedy, as when she describes how both parents ended up at the bottom of the cliff ("the heavier one reached out to grasp her—reached too far; grasped too well"). Elsewhere, she strikes an earnest note as the women reunite in Ireland and reckon with Olwen's history of alcoholism. The inconsistent tone can be jarring, but Hughes shines when weaving the dense intellectual material of the three academic sisters' work into their dialogue ("Just don't start on about the mind-body separateness of a pint of Guinness," Maeve jokes to Nell). This one perplexes and stimulates in equal measure.
