Author Cassie Hamer is known for her dark domestic dramas, filled with the minutiae of family life immediately recognisable to anyone with small people in their orbit, every book touched with secrets, scandal, betrayal or regret. Her latest novel THE STRANGER AT THE TABLE (HarperCollins 2025) adds to her oeuvre with a deliciously unsettling and gripping tale about taking responsibility for our actions (or not), the waves of hurt that can be caused by a single distracted action, and the perils of allowing guilt and shame to fester.
The book begins from the perspective of two paramedics attending the scene of an accident (or was it?) on Christmas Day on the upper North Shore of Sydney. They discover a family in full celebration mode, despite a man seriously injured after a fall down a long flight of outdoor stairs. To complicate matters, nobody seems to know the man, calling him ‘a stranger’.
The narrative is then provided from the points of view of several main characters. Marianne (or Maz) Antonio is a young-ish mum with two adorable girls and a loving husband. At first glance, her life appears perfect. But several years earlier, Marianne made a terrible mistake, one that she paid for through the criminal system, and continues to pay for through her own feelings of guilt and remorse. Alcohol was involved, and Hamer explores the boundaries and temptations of addiction in a nuanced way.
We also hear from Marianne’s sister, Ellinor, and the women’s mother, Margaret. Both women are entirely supportive of Marianne and the second chance she has been given to rebuild her life, but secretly, both have hidden agendas, and perhaps not the best judgment when it comes to family affairs.
This special Christmas lunch is Maz’s opportunity to show everyone that she is reformed but it is hampered by her recurring flashbacks of what happened the day of the accident, which seem to suggest something more has gone on other than merely what she remembers (which isn’t much). She’s desperate to make the whole awful situation up to her children and encourage them to fit in with the local school. Her sister and mother attend, and her husband Andrew. Her mother Margaret – long a fan of the Waifs and Straifs Christmas – has yet again invited a random stranger to attend the celebrations. But as the meal goes on, tensions heighten and it seems this stranger may not be a stranger after all; in fact, his connection to the Antonio family might be in danger of ripping apart everything Maz has tried so hard to rebuild.
THE STRANGER AT THE TABLE is a light-hearted and often funny read that canvasses some serious issues. Hamer has a way of leveling all her characters to show that elevated economic and class differences in no way prevent people from experiencing the same temptations, addictions, betrayals, family disputes and squabbles, passions, regrets, feelings of fury and revenge, and the capacity to surprise as any other cohort of society. By the same token, her characters crave resolution, forgiveness, understanding, acceptance and love.