St. John's archivist Michael Lowe's life is turned on its head when a Dutch acquaintance, Anton Aalders, arrives on his doorstep. Anton is searching for a father he never met, a Newfoundland soldier who was part of the Allied forces that liberated the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War. Anton's visit stretches from a few days to a few months. Brendan "Miles" Harnett, Michael's friend, is obsessed with his own search for the lost "fatherland" of Newfoundland, which gave up its political independence in 1934. The Strangers' Gallery is a finely crafted, at times humorous, novel about the painful search for political and personal identity.