The Only Café
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Narrated by:
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Greg Campbell
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Written by:
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Linden MacIntyre
About this listen
A timely and gripping novel in which a son tries to solve the mystery of his father's death - a man who tried but could not forget a troubled past in his native Lebanon.
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.
The Only Café is both a moving mystery and an illuminating exploration of how the traumatic past, if left unexamined, shadows every moment of the present.
©2017 Linden MacIntyre (P)2017 Penguin Random House CanadaWhat the critics say
What listeners say about The Only Café
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- mavo
- 2022-11-05
Hidden Secrets
This is a compelling and touching story of a son trying to find out about his father's life, one that has been kept hidden and secret. It is an uncovering of the tragedies of the Lebanese civil war from a very personal point of view and how those events shaped the lives of the people who lived through them. And how little there was left over for the 'new family' in the 'new world'.
Lyndon MacIntyre never disappoints.
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- Grace Anne
- 2021-01-14
Excellent story telling
Really enjoyed this book. Kept the pace going, sprinkled with lots of clues to keep you wondering and wanting to know the outcomes. Excellent narrator. Very adept with the different accents. Will definitely be recommending The Only Cafe.
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- Roberta W
- 2023-01-01
Glad I found this
I always enjoyed Linden’s journalism, so was intrigued to discover he was writing fiction. This book was deeper than I expected, but that’s hardly a surprise, given his knowledge of world conflicts. As a result, it is not escape fiction, and there are some brutal passages. I do wish he’d narrated it though!
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