The Paper Man
Austria in 1938, and the Anschluss with Germany is underway. Matthias Sindelar, the eponymous Paper Man (his nickname), is a gifted football player who plays for the Austrian national team. In the celebratory Anschluss game between Austria and Germany in Vienna, Sindelar demonstrates his mastery of the game and humiliates his inferior German opponents. A brave act indeed, especially for a man who has made his disdain for the Nazi regime clear. The story dissects his growing relationship with Rebekah, a much younger nineteen-year-old Jewish woman, with whom he starts a passionate and loving relationship.
In a parallel narrative, Rebekah’s son Jack Shine (formerly Schein) is in Cork in Ireland in 1980 living in the small Jewish community in the city. He discovers a box of letters, photographs and newspaper cuttings that belonged to his deceased mother. Hitherto, he had no idea who his father was, and the revelations contained in the box unsettle his quotidian life as he unravels his unsuspected backstory. The novel’s account of the absorption of Austria by Germany is engaging, as is the research into the notorious Anschluss football game, as well as life for notable football players in the years leading up to the war. Sindelar is based on a real man, and his footballing skills and career are based upon fact, though his relationship and child with the Jewish Rebekah appears to be fictional. This is a moving and fascinating novel of emotional depth.
