The Paper Man by Billy O’Callaghan: Haunting tale of a son’s loss and a vanished Vienna

Contemporary Cork is thrown into sharp relief against the romance and tension of the Austrian capital’s past just before the World War II

Evoking a lost world: Billy O’Callaghan

Fiona Murphy

Kaumberg, Austria, 1935. In a sepia-tinted memory, we meet small-town, resolute but gentle Rebekah. The course her life could have taken — would have taken — is about to be altered by a questioning glance across the bar from Sindelar, the Paper Man, an Austrian sports star.