Cassi by Johanna Swanberg (2024)

Cassi is a thirty-seven-year-old woman who has been working as a head waiter with a sommelier training background in a Stockholm restaurant. She is engaged to Jarmo, a few years older, and has recently sold her apartment in the city to move back to her hometown. Cassi now rents a basement flat from a single mother, where she lives with her dog Maine and has taken a new job stocking shelves in a local supermarket. It is obvious early on that alcohol has become a problem for her and wine is her evening, and even daily, comfort in excess. It becomes apparent that this is a family pattern, as her mother Bea was an alcoholic and, due to her mother’s abuse, Cassi was partly raised by her grandmother. There was apparent toxicity between mother and daughter which was never resolved before Bea passed away.
Cassi’s messy and drunken behaviour increases and she finds a small cottage listing after a fight with her landlord, which she buys on a whim. She moves into her new home quickly and has dreams about developing something creative within the adjacent barn which is charming. This cottage move introduces her to a group of characters who are her neighbors in the area. One is Alida who is in her twenties and in recovery from cocaine addiction. Cassi falls into the role of therapist for her and as an extra source of income, finds herself putting up a sign offering healing sessions in her home. She accepts neighbors Fia and Marlene for healing treatments using playing cards for predictions and stones for healing properties. She meets Pavel, who is a Lithuanian gentleman in his eighties, who helps her with some renovations of her cottage. He reveals to her that he is close friends with Karl-Adam, who she purchased the cottage from and who is now living in a home for the memory impaired. Cassi also becomes friendly with the unique personality Marlene who is in her sixties and is sleeping with Berzan who is half her age. We also learn that Pavel has had a secret relationship with Karl-Adam over the years despite Karl-Adam having a wife and child in another town. Pavel is missing his partner and Cassi patiently listens to his romantic woes. In return, Pavel becomes a pillar for Cassi, whose drinking is spiraling out of control. He checks in on her every morning and puts her to bed when she has had too much to drink. Cassi is still able to continue with her healing sessions for the villagers. She meets Lollo, an interior designer in her fifties, and together they develop a yoga session online, which goes viral.
It is Cassi’s birthday and that evening Jarmo arrives as do her childhood friends Andrea, Liza and Maggie. It is a tense and awkward atmosphere at dinner. It is eventually understood that this is because the girlfriends have discovered that Jarmo has led a double life, has a child with another girlfriend and is also still married to his wife with whom he has a son. To make these newly revealed matters more distressing for Cassi, she had earlier terminated a pregnancy by Jarmo’s insistence that he was not quite yet prepared for fatherhood.

Cassi becomes closer with Pavel and she supports him in turn to visit Karl-Adam and their connection is rekindled, bringing Pavel a sense of peace. Meanwhile, Alina is trying to reach out to Cassi, but her attempts are ignored. One drunken evening it comes to light that Alina has recognised Cassi as the waiter from Stockholm and openly calls her out as a fraud healer, humiliating her. Pavel supports her through all, saying that their friendship goes beyond this deceit, and he advises Cassi to talk to her friends instead of isolating herself. That same night, Pavel passes away and Cassi discovers his body the next morning and is absolutely devastated at the loss of her friend. Surprisingly Alida turns up for her regular therapy session with Cassi but roles are then reversed and instead Alida comforts Cassi in her grief over Pavel’s death. During Pavel’s funeral, all the villagers come together for Cassi and they show that even though she acted fraudulently, they still like her and feel that she has helped them in many different ways.
At the end of the novel, Cassi comes to the realisation that she has isolated herself all too much and that it is time to move on. She reconnects with her old friends Andrea, Liza and Maggie and all is forgiven between them. Cassi lets it be forgotten that her friends found it to not be their place to inform her of Jarmo’s secret lives, which they were clearly aware of.