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Fiction Literary

The Only Café

A Novel

by (author) Linden MacIntyre

Publisher
Random House of Canada
Initial publish date
Jun 2018
Category
Literary, Political, Psychological
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780345812070
    Publish Date
    Jun 2018
    List Price
    $22.00

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Description

The Only Café is both a moving mystery in which a son tries to solve the mystery of his father's death--and an illuminating exploration of how the traumatic past, if left unexamined, shadows every moment of the present.

Pierre Cormier had secrets. Though he married twice, became a high-flying lawyer and a father, he didn't let anyone really know him. And he was especially silent about what had happened to him in Lebanon, the country he fled during civil war to come to Canada as a refugee. When, in the midst of a corporate scandal, he went missing after his boat exploded, his teenaged son Cyril didn't know how to mourn him. But five years later, a single bone and a distinctive gold chain are recovered, and Pierre is at last declared dead. Which changes everything.
At the reading of the will, it turns out that instead of a funeral, Pierre wanted a "roast" at a bar no one knew he frequented--The Only Café in Toronto's east end. He'd even left a guest list that included one mysterious name: Ari. Cyril, now working as an intern for a major national newsroom and assisting on reporting a story on homegrown terrorism, tracks down Ari at the bar, and finds out that he is an Israeli who knew his father in Lebanon in the '80s. Who is Ari? What can he reveal about what happened to Pierre in Lebanon? Is Pierre really dead? Can Ari even be trusted? Soon Cyril's personal investigation is entangled in the larger news story, all of it twining into a fabric of lies and deception that stretches from contemporary Toronto back to the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon in September 1982.

About the author

LINDEN MACINTYRE was the host of Canada’s premiere investigative television show, the fifth estate, for nearly twenty-five years. Born in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, and raised in Port Hastings, Cape Breton, he began his career in 1964 with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald as a parliamentary bureau reporter. MacIntyre later worked at The Journal and hosted CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning before joining the fifth estate. His work on that show garnered an International Emmy, and he has won ten Gemini Awards.

His bestselling first novel, The Long Stretch, was nominated for a CBA Libris Award, while his boyhood memoir, Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, was a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2006 and won both the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. His second novel, The Bishop’s Man, was a #1 national bestseller and the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the CBA Libris Fiction Book of the Year Award. His other novels include Why Men Lie, Punishment and The Only Café. MacIntyre lives in Toronto with his wife, CBC radio host and author Carol Off. They spend their summers in a Cape Breton village by the sea.

Linden MacIntyre's profile page

Excerpt: The Only Café: A Novel (by (author) Linden MacIntyre)

He’d driven his new toy, a vintage Mustang, north to Bloor. He might have then turned west, toward home. But he’d turned east instead, crossed the Don Valley and entered what he’d always thought of as the city’s European microcosm, Danforth Avenue. He drove past the teeming patios, the Greek restaurants, Greek street signs, Greek statuary, Mediterranean enthusiasm. He drove slowly, absorbing all the images of pleasure. Too much pleasure. Too many thoughtless people.He could feel a headache starting.
He drove until he entered another world. No more patios and pleasure-seeking throngs, no more shish kebab and booze. The signs were now in Urdu, the shops proclaiming halal meat. He drove until he saw the mosque, the unmistakable minaret, the silver crescent, the emerald domes.
He parked the Mustang, locked it, stepped back, admired his car, felt his spirits lift but only for a moment. The car was a reminder of why he endured days like that day, a day of bad news, double-talk and spin. The car was a reward, like the boat he kept in Nova Scotia. Car and boat, vehicles for fantasy, for flight. But now he needed distance from his car, distance from his day. He needed to escape even his escapes.
He started walking. And then he spotted the little bar with the peculiar name in this unlikely neighbourhood. He went in, ordered a beer. He sat trying to imagine what awaited him in the days to come. The patio was just outside and beyond it he could see the domes that made him feel at home.

-
He’d spent maybe twenty minutes on the first beer, then he’d gone to the bar and fetched a second. Perhaps because he appeared to be out of place in his expensive suit and tie, a stranger came and gestured toward the empty seat across from him.
Pierre nodded toward the chair. The stranger sat.
“Have I seen you here before?”
The agitation of the day was undiminished and he didn’t answer right away. But there was something about the stranger’s accent. Agitation was replaced by curiosity. “I doubt it.”
The intruder said, “I’m Ari,” and held out a beefy hand. Pierre stared at it.
Perhaps it was the face. Or maybe it was something deeper, a voiceprint in the memory. Ormaybe it was just the similarity to another name that loomed large in memories Pierre had buried.
Ari started to rise. “Sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt.” Pierre quickly grasped the hand. “It’s okay . . . sit . . . Harry?”
“Ari. Short for Ariel.”
“Pierre Cormier. I’ve never been here before. A bit different.”
“Cormier? Yes. I find the atmosphere relaxing. Casual.”
“Ari. Interesting name. Ari what?”
“Roloff. An old Quebec name.”
“But you aren’t French.”
“True.” Ari shrugged, looked away briefly. “Nor are you,” he said. There was a trace of aggression in the look, the tone of voice.
Pierre could feel the agitation creeping back as he studied the face before him. It was broad and smooth, fleshy, friendly, open, the eyes interested but weary. What a bizarre coincidence. He felt a flutter in his stomach. Ariel. The same name. There was even a bodily resemblance. The man in front of him was short and overweight, borderline obese. The hair, the colour of ash, was thinning at the front but effectively combed over.
“You come here often?” he asked.
Ari smiled, shrugged. “Maybe more often than I should.”
“So how long have you been in this country?”
Ari laughed. “Where do you think I’m from?” The subtle thickness of his consonants.
“I know exactly where you’re from.”
The smile was cautious now. Ari nodded.
“You could say we were neighbours once,” Pierre said.
“Ah. Neighbours north? South? East?”
“North,” said Pierre.
“Yes. Pierre? Yimkin kenna as-hab. Perhaps we were even friends.”
“Perhaps. You speak like an Arab.”
“Maybe not so much. I’ve been here five years,” Ari said. “You?”
“Quite a bit longer.”
“You’re from Beirut,” Ari said.
“No. A bit south of there.”
Ari hesitated. “Damour?”
“You know Damour?”
Ari nodded. “I’ve been there.”
“I had family in Damour. But I was born in Saida.”
“Ah. Sidon. But you had family in Damour?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to order a drink. Would you like another beer? Or something better.”
“I’ll have what you’re having.”

Ari returned with two glasses. Scotch.
“And you? I’m going to guess Haifa.”
“Why Haifa?”
“Just a feeling. You’ve lived with Arabs.”
“Yes. But not Haifa. A kibbutz near Hebron. You never heard of it.”
“Probably not. I suppose you hear this a lot, but you bear a remarkable resemblance to someone famous.”
Ari laughed. “I don’t hear it anymore so much. Someone no longer visible. Someone slowly being forgotten, yes?”
“Forgotten here, maybe. But not so much in other places.”
“When did you say you came?” asked Ari.
“I didn’t say.”
“And you’ve been back?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“I have nobody left there.”
“You said you have family in Damour?”
Pierre shook his head. “Past tense. You know the history.”
“The important parts.” Ari reached across the table, clasped Pierre’s hand again, held it gently for a moment. “Such a tragedy, Damour. And all that followed.”
Pierre stood abruptly, light-headed. “I think I have to leave now.” He took a quick mouthful of the Scotch. It was strong. “Thanks for the drink,” he said, setting the empty glass back down.
Ari nodded and looked away.
And that was how it started.
-

Editorial Reviews

The Only Café will transfix you with its disquieting and cautionary narrative. . . . [J]udicious and expertly timed. . . . The Only Café’s elegant prose attains a lyrical quality. . . . [A] testament to MacIntyre’s dexterity as a storyteller.” —The Globe and Mail

“[S]pare, propulsive and rich in observational detail and dialogue. . . . MacIntyre’s journalism training and experience . . . allow him to explore Lebanon’s labyrinthine, multi-factional civil war with authority and compassion.” —James Grainger, author of Harmless, Toronto Star

The Only Café is imbued with a feeling of lived authenticity.” —Quill and Quire

“Unlike the cozy armchair mysteries of Agatha Christie—where everything is wrapped up in a neat little bow by story’s end—The Only Café argues that not all mysteries will be solved and perhaps that’s for the best. MacIntyre’s characters insist that truth is a fiction or at best an amorphous reality and that ‘the only way to know what happens is to be part of it.’” —Atlantic Books

“Linden MacIntyre has mined his other life, as a venerable CBC journalist, to pen The Only Café, and the novel works wonderfully. . . . [A] twisty, literate thriller that ranks among the most enjoyable novels I’ve read this year. International intrigue, masterful storytelling and a sure hand make The Only Café a compelling read.” —49th Shelf

“[A] taut, powerful novel.” —The Chronicle Herald

“[MacIntyre’s] trademark narrative skill makes the novel a must-read. . . . As he traces Cyril’s progress, MacIntyre uses his intriguing tale to underscore the futility of trying to erase the past. One of MacIntyre’s strengths is his remarkable command of dialogue. Conversations between characters are snappy, convincing and laced with wit. Another strength is the writer’s ability to observe, with a keen eye, the details of everyday life, both in Toronto and in the Middle East.” —St. Thomas Times-Journal

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