Grieving, guilt-stricken, forty-something solo mum Sarah St John is cleaning out her son’s room after his death in an avalanche. Reflecting on the choices he made and on her own choices that led to his birth and untimely death, her perspective on her son’s life begins to shift and change. Hawaiian writer Kaui Hart Hemmings’s second novel, The Possibilities, echoes some of the themes and preoccupations of her first, The Descendants. Both plots focus on parents redefining themselves after a personal tragedy in paradise. As Sarah chips awkwardly away at her new identity as a childless mother, Hemmings delicately captures a certain grief-induced spikiness that feels very real.

Like The Descendants, place and family legacies are explored through each character’s engagement with their landscape. The tiny snow village of Breckenridge becomes a tipping point between aimlessness and direction. The hiking tracks, ski runs and maze of resort-shopping strips reinforce the novel’s interest in the myriad paths a person’s life might take.

Despite the narrative revolving around the devastating loss of a child, there are many bittersweet comic moments in this quirky family drama. Hemmings takes the blowtorch to women’s friendships with a wry ferocity, revealing what is most ugly and beautiful about them. ‘Sometimes another woman’s polished nails are enough to make you feel like a failure,’ says Sarah. The relationship between Sarah and her conservative best friend, Suzanne, is a cracker, unravelling women’s simultaneous capacity for care and cattiness.

As she gently teases out Sarah’s path to renewal, Hemmings includes a predictable but not fatal plot twist midway through the book. But just as it seems the ending may tie things up too neatly, the novel leaves us on a satisfyingly open-ended note, allowing readers to contemplate, as the title suggests, the possibilities.

Sally Keighery is a freelance reviewer.