The Paper Man
‘One of our finest writers’ John Banville
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
**A BOOK OF 2023 IN IRISH TIMES, RTÉ GUIDE AND SUNDAY INDEPENDENT**
An unforgettable and sweeping interwar love story, from the Costa-shortlisted and bestselling Irish author of Life Sentences
'Gorgeous' SARA BAUME
'His most ambitious work to date' JOHN BANVILLE
'A beautiful, layered novel' ELAINE FEENEY
1980s Cork. Jack Shine discovers a shoe box full of love letters in his mother's belongings. Rebekah came to Cork alone as a young Jewish refugee from Vienna when the Second World War broke out. She died soon after, and Jack never learned of his father's identity. Why did she keep newspaper clippings about a famous footballer player? Who was 'The Paper Man'?
As Jack uncovers his mother's life, he is transported to 1930s Vienna, a bustling city on the brink of war. At the heart of the action is Matthias Sindelar, one of the most famous footballers in the world, known as 'The Paper Man' because of his effortless weave across the pitch. When Sindelar unexpectedly meets Rebekah, both of their lives are changed forever. As war looms, they must accept that their survival will tear them apart.
Based on true events, The Paper Man is the story of twentieth-century Europe and love against the odds. It is a story that will take Jack far from Cork and all the way back to Vienna, and towards The Paper Man.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Irish author O'Callaghan (Life Sentences) brings to life 1930s Austria and 1980s Ireland in this mesmerizing tale of love, soccer, and family secrets. On the eve of Germany's 1938 annexation of Austria, the latter's national soccer team captain, Matthias Sindelar, is being surveilled by the Gestapo for mocking Hitler and his team's German opponents on the field. Realizing he's placed his Jewish lover, Rebekah, at risk, he persuades her to leave Vienna and join her cousins in Cork, Ireland. There, Rebekah discovers she is pregnant with Sindelar's child. O'Callaghan then shifts to 1980 Cork, where Rebekah's son, 41-year-old stevedore Jack Shine, finds stashed in his mother's things a bundle of yellowed newspaper clippings about Sindelar and velvet-wrapped letters addressed to her and signed "S." Jack is stunned; his mother, who died 30 years earlier, had never disclosed his father's identity. With help from his father-in-law, Jack begins to trace his family history. There's a natural realism to the Cork scenes, and a romanticizing of mid-1930s Vienna and its coffee houses, dance halls, and art exhibitions, which stands in aching contrast to the coming war and the couple's separation. Even better is the action on the soccer pitch. With Sindelar's team facing a sudden push from the Germans, they revert to "one-touching the play back and forth across the field, toying with their foe like picadors around a weary bull, lancing and weaving away, moving as wind moves." O'Callaghan's storytelling is magnetic.
