The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes review – follow your own path

A woman searching for solitude runs into her sisters in this brilliant, brainy tale

The Alternatives begins with a& lecture on geological destruction. Olwen Flattery, a& thirtysomething academic with a razor-sharp wit and a soft spot for hard liquor, tries to impress on a roomful of Galway undergraduates the aeons of tectonic convergence it took for the Earth to reach its current form, versus the terrifying speed at which we “needy, grabby, arsony narcissists” seem bent on destroying it.

Olwen soon grows frustrated by the& confines of the lecture theatre, the inability of words to convey her urgent message. She mounts her bike and leads an unofficial field trip to the Atlantic coast, where she lets the rocks& do the talking. And that night, after dinner with her partner (and a few hefty gins), Olwen mounts her bike again and cycles out of her home, out of the county, out of her entire life.