Journey to the Center of the Truth There is always more than one side to a story. History’s well renowned polymath, Galileo Galilei said, “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” The pursuit of truth and desire to know the unknown is prevalent in Lynden Macintyre’s The Only Cafė. Macintyre writes about a man named Cyril, an intern at a news broadcasting station in Toronto who is determined to learn the reality of his father’s disappearance in 2007. After five years of uncertainty, Cyril decides to solve the mystery of his father’s “concluded” death, setting him free from the shackles of doubt (3). This makes him realize that “the only way to know what happens is to be a part of it” (417).…show more content… Cyril’s discovery of his father's secrets lead to more secrets. “Five years and two months” after the sudden vanishing of Pierre Cormier, Cyril’s father, his family, “all more or less resigned to the fact that how he died would remain forever unresolved” (3). Because Pierre “kept his corporate and private lives apart,” his family, “from an emotional perspective, lay the mystery aside” (5). The “mystery of his disappearance” demonstrates how secrets compel individuals to accept whatever reality is presented to them. Following the meeting with the lawyer, Cyril learns of a “name no one recognized”; “Ari” and a pub he “frequented”; the Only Cafe (5). Pierre’s “frequented” visiting the Only Cafe pub to speak to this “mysterious” man becomes the starting point of uncovering his father’s…show more content… Pierre is a “private man” with “no emotional connection” (23). For Cyril to understand what kind of a man Pierre was, he had to come to “the realization that he was in his father’s world” (223). The significance of this realization illustrates how stepping into his father’s shoes grants him a more thorough understanding of his
