The Paper Man
  • Published: 27 August 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529921717
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $26.00

The Paper Man

‘One of our finest writers’ John Banville

Formats & editions
Paperback
27 Aug 2024
Tr. Paperback
22 Aug 2023
Hardback
4 Jun 2023
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An unforgettable and sweeping interwar love story, from the Costa-shortlisted and bestselling Irish author of Life Sentences

**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.
  • Published: 27 August 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529921717
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $26.00
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About the author

Billy O'Callaghan

Billy O’Callaghan is the author of the critically acclaimed novel My Coney Island Baby, which has been translated into eight languages and was shortlisted for the Encore Award 2020. The title story in his short-story collection The Boatman and Other Stories was shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award. He lives in Douglas, a village on the edge of Cork City.

portrait photo of Billy O'Callaghan

Also by Billy O'Callaghan

My Coney Island Baby
Life Sentences
The Boatman and Other Stories
See all

Praise for The Paper Man

Billy O'Callaghan's writing is powerfully emotional and wholly captivating from page one. The Paper Man is the best book yet by a truly gifted Irish writer

Gabriel Byrne, author of Walking with Ghosts

Gorgeous. Billy O'Callaghan writes with such a spirit of warmth about the darkest of subjects

Sara Baume, author of A Line Made by Walking

A beautiful, layered novel about love, football and family. As the world falls apart in its darkest hours, this story tells of a life so bright, it echoes on into the generations: so that even in tragedy, there is always hope

Elaine Feeney, author of As You Were

The Paper Man is Billy O'Callaghan's most ambitious work to date, and it fulfils its ambitions magnificently. Exciting, moving, perceptive and wonderfully entertaining

John Banville, author of The Sea

Imaginative, beautifully told... Billy O'Callaghan arranges the story superbly

Spectator

As the moving story unspools, O'Callaghan proves himself the most engaging of storytellers

Daily Mail

History’s inherited burden presses firmly on the characters in Billy O’Callaghan’s The Paper Man... O’Callaghan moves his narrative deftly between the Vienna of the Anschluss, rural Austria before the Nazi takeover and early 1980s Ireland

New York Times