Overview

A deeply moving interwar romance set between 1930s Austria and 1980s Ireland, based on a real-life unsolved mystery. 1930s Austria. Vienna is a bustling, cosmopolitan city on the brink of war. Matthias Sindelar is an internationally renowned soccer player known as The Paper Man because of his because of his effortless weave across the field. When Sindelar speaks out against Hitler, his fame can't protect him from being placed under Gestapo surveillance. Meanwhile, Sindelar falls in love with a young Jewish girl named Rebekah. As the atmosphere in Vienna darkens under the Nazi regime, Rebekah flees to relatives in Cork, Ireland. Only after she arrives there does she realize she is pregnant with Sindelar's child. The following year, at the age of 35, The Paper Man is found dead in his apartment. 1980s Ireland. In the Jewish Quarter of Cork, Rebekah's son Jack Shine discovers a bundle of German letters and newspaper clippings tied with a ribbon while sorting his mother's belongings. With the help of his German-speaking father-in-law, Jack translates the letters and attempts to piece together his family history and, hopefully, solve the mystery of his father's identity. Based on real people and true events, The Paper Man is the story of twentieth-century Europe, the Holocaust, the cost of fame, and love against the odds.

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"Billy O'Callaghan uses a trio of voices in his poignant novel Life Sentences as three generations of an Irish family probe a legacy of poverty and war...powerful. -- ""New York Times"" O'Callaghan has done a brilliant job of capturing the ethos of the Irish setting as we see it through the beautifully created lives of his characters, who are extraordinary, as is this timeless book about them. -- ""Booklist (starred review)"" O'Callaghan writes with a bright, enlivening emotional palette and a penetrating eye for the details of family history. A deeply felt and distinctive work by a real craftsman. -- ""Kirkus (starred review)"""

Billy O'Callaghan uses a trio of voices in his poignant novel Life Sentences as three generations of an Irish family probe a legacy of poverty and war...powerful. -- New York Times O'Callaghan has done a brilliant job of capturing the ethos of the Irish setting as we see it through the beautifully created lives of his characters, who are extraordinary, as is this timeless book about them. -- Booklist (starred review) O'Callaghan writes with a bright, enlivening emotional palette and a penetrating eye for the details of family history. A deeply felt and distinctive work by a real craftsman. -- Kirkus (starred review)

Author Information

Billy O'Callaghan won the Irish Book Award for the title story of his collection The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind and is the author of two other short story collections, In Exile and In Too Deep. His debut novel, The Dead House, was an Irish Times bestseller. He was a finalist for the 2016 COSTA Short Story Award, the Glimmer Train Prize, the Faulkner Wisdom Prize, and the Seán Ó Faoláin Award and has published his stories widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He resides in County Cork, Ireland.

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