The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes: book review
Overview: Four sisters have existed in each other's orbit for nearly four decades, falling in and out of touch. But when their oldest sister, Olwen, up and disappears one day, the sisters feel compelled to close ranks. They reassemble from across Ireland, England, and the United States to find their sister and figure out why she wants to detach from society. Back together, they're forced to confront their past, their individual struggles, and what it means to be sisters. Overall: 4.5
Characters: 5 The texture and genuine life of the sisters is undeniable. They're all so specific and unique, and that makes the book feel rich and alive. Olwen is the oldest sister and the one we meet first. She's living in Galway with her boyfriend and his two children, nursing them all back through their grief about his wife's death. She's an earth science expert and teaches undergraduate seminars under the curtain of climate doom that lingers in her mind. Then she up and leaves, disappears on a bike heading North. Olwen was the "mom" sister, the serious one, the measured one, the caretaker. In her disappearance, she finally lets herself unravel. Olwen is the ultimate oldest sister character, facing those classic problems.
Then there's Rhona who's the second oldest. In the wake of their parents' death, while the sisters were teenagers, Olwen took on the caretaking role while Rhona decided her place was to be the example of striving and achieving. She's a political science professor whose calendar is full to the gills with motherhood and media appearances and attempting to restructure the world. She's serious and somewhat abrasive in her structure and desire to fix. Rhona's point of contention with the world comes down to her insatiable appetite for control.
Maeve is the leader of the younger duo with the baby of the family, Nell. Maeve is an Instagram-famous chef living in London. She's navigating the awkward spot between commercial viability and ideals she's cultivated on her houseboat. Maeve is still getting a handle on being an adult and answering those big questions of adulthood around what you want your life to look like.
Nell is the baby but perhaps the wisest as she's a professor like her two oldest sisters, specializing in philosophy. Nell's struggled with her health, particularly in light of her insurance conundrum as she's chosen to live in America. She's run across an ocean to assert her independence and build her own life without people worrying over her, but similar to her oldest sister, there's a lesson somewhere about not being able to live in total isolation.
There are others that color the lives of the sisters at different times in the book that are rich and interesting in their own right, but I'll let you discover them for yourself.
Plot: 4 This is a meandering, very literary book that does have a shiny hook: one of the sisters falls off the grid and the others have to go find her. Obviously, this is a novel about people's lives, not a mystery novel, so these bits aren't hard won, but they do create some intrigue. The sisters spend most of the book trying to work out their personal issues and issues with one another. In the early chapters they're facing these things siloed largely in their own lives, and in the second half, this is in the context of Olwen's quasi-bunker where she's gone to start her new life, their natural setting stripped out. There's a propulsion here from wanting to get to know these people on a deeper level, but there's also a molasses quality to how much of the sisters' interests are fully explored here, long excerpts of their lectures on geology, philosophy, political science, food scarcity. If you're thoroughly along for the ride, this is quite enjoyable. I actually feel like I learned a fair bit, a similar impression to the feeling after finishing Wellness, that I learned some things both emotionally and on a human level and on these extemporaneous subjects melded in the book.
Writing: 5 Hughes is a fantastic writer. The prose here is so elegant without getting in the way of its honesty. This is fantastic character-work unfolding, and it felt like a treat to be immersed in such a fully developed, encompassing world. As a note to readers who have strong biases on the topic, I will warn you that there are no quotation marks in the novel. This no longer phases me in the slightest, but I know it can be a controversial move. Another spot of experimentation in the novel is that certain sections of the book are written in the format of a script, which will solve the quotation mark complainers problems temporarily. I could argue there's something here in trying to showcase the immediacy of these scenes, maybe up the tension through the faster pacing. I don't know if I genuinely believe that. These scripted pieces didn't detract or do much for me; they were just the next delivery unit for the story. I feel such a warmth for this book and the sisters. Highly recommend.
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