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Paperclip
Paperclip is the lively and ambitious story of an early, unknown Space Race, and of its three proud acolytes. Driven by unforced, graceful prose, soaring heights of drama, and thoughtful character development, Paperclip traces the history of hiddenness that unites Robert Goddard, Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev.
It is hard to imagine three more disparate men.
The American rocket man Robert Goddard, mocked (and then discarded) by his own nation, shuns public life to live in the desert, unwittingly teaching his enemies—none other than Nazis and Soviets—to build rockets. Goddard is a man of dignity, devoted to the quiet life of the mind; his protégé Sachs carries his mentor’s tradition of discreet competitiveness back from the desert, into the arena of arsenals and war criminals.
Von Braun, convinced he could bring about humanity’s salvation through ferocious apolity and cold egomania, was the inventor of the world’s first terror weapon, the fearsome V2. The first true space man, he lamented that his London V2 attacks “worked perfectly,” except that his rockets kept “landing on the wrong planet.” At the end of the war, Von Braun’s machinations position him between the US and Russia, wagering his own occult knowledge and the Reich’s missiles against his freedom, an act of blind brinkmanship to avoid certain conviction at Nuremburg, and winning him safe passage to the West in the top-secret Operation Paperclip.
Sergei Korolev, one of the most enigmatic figures of the twentieth century, maintained his whole life that “we will all disappear without a trace.” Rebellious, remote, cynical, at once scorned by a Soviet Union under Stalin—he was “purged” in pogroms and languished in mines and sharashkas—and also one of her greatest patriots, Korolev—nearly nameless and faceless—nonetheless strove to build a truly Russian space program. He evades his crushing imprisonment through wild escapes into the realm of pure thought via memory and the broadly-turning sailplanes of his youth, on a life-long quest to regain his identity.
Linking these men together is Pieper, whom we recognize in the primordial scene of the anonymous cryptographer—late at night, hunched over his radio set, listening in on distant drama, solving baroque riddles. Caught up in the tide of war and the rush of discovery, Pieper, in his own way, decides the fates of nations.
Blending meticulous research, dynamic character-writing and powerful fiction sense, Paperclip is sweeping, sensitive and cinematic in scope.
It is hard to imagine three more disparate men.
The American rocket man Robert Goddard, mocked (and then discarded) by his own nation, shuns public life to live in the desert, unwittingly teaching his enemies—none other than Nazis and Soviets—to build rockets. Goddard is a man of dignity, devoted to the quiet life of the mind; his protégé Sachs carries his mentor’s tradition of discreet competitiveness back from the desert, into the arena of arsenals and war criminals.
Von Braun, convinced he could bring about humanity’s salvation through ferocious apolity and cold egomania, was the inventor of the world’s first terror weapon, the fearsome V2. The first true space man, he lamented that his London V2 attacks “worked perfectly,” except that his rockets kept “landing on the wrong planet.” At the end of the war, Von Braun’s machinations position him between the US and Russia, wagering his own occult knowledge and the Reich’s missiles against his freedom, an act of blind brinkmanship to avoid certain conviction at Nuremburg, and winning him safe passage to the West in the top-secret Operation Paperclip.
Sergei Korolev, one of the most enigmatic figures of the twentieth century, maintained his whole life that “we will all disappear without a trace.” Rebellious, remote, cynical, at once scorned by a Soviet Union under Stalin—he was “purged” in pogroms and languished in mines and sharashkas—and also one of her greatest patriots, Korolev—nearly nameless and faceless—nonetheless strove to build a truly Russian space program. He evades his crushing imprisonment through wild escapes into the realm of pure thought via memory and the broadly-turning sailplanes of his youth, on a life-long quest to regain his identity.
Linking these men together is Pieper, whom we recognize in the primordial scene of the anonymous cryptographer—late at night, hunched over his radio set, listening in on distant drama, solving baroque riddles. Caught up in the tide of war and the rush of discovery, Pieper, in his own way, decides the fates of nations.
Blending meticulous research, dynamic character-writing and powerful fiction sense, Paperclip is sweeping, sensitive and cinematic in scope.
458 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 2014
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