The Flight Portfolio

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Varian decides to accompany the Chagalls to the US, and Thomas sadly realizes he's leaving for good. With appearances by Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim, sophisticated prose, and descriptive storytelling, this serious and occasionally humorous account of a difficult mission kept me coming back for more. In 1940, Varian Fry, American scholar and historian, arrives in Marseilles from New York facing an impossible task: pry a handful of gifted refugees out of Vichy France and get them to safety.

Her writing was masterful, from the power of her descriptions to the carefully crafted intertwinings of plot to the sympathetic and believable characters. ORRINGER:That was the element of Varian Fry’s experience that I was most fascinated by as a novelist.Flight Portfolio is an ambitious, well written, lengthy novel using as its framework the life of Varian Fry. His time stretches on, partially because of his heady success and partially because he has reconnected with the man who may be the love of his life. Many desperate people - including famous artists and musicians- were begging for help - seeking any means to escape.

It is probably best that the French wasn’t translated, since that might have pulled the reader out of the story, but since I almost flunked French in HS, I found this frustrating. From the bestselling, award-winningauthor of The Invisible Bridge comes a gripping tale of forbiddenlove, high-stakes adventure, and unimaginable courage filled with“suspense and tragedy, unexpected twists and deliverance” ( The Seattle Times). It reads like gay faction that Orringer, who is a straight woman, wrote up and then just inserted blindly into the history of some man's life. Varian Fry lit a small, bright lamp in a world of darkness, and in the deft hands of Julie Orringer—under the spell of her masterful prose, her feeling portraiture, her classic spy-thriller plotting, and her vivid re-creation of that beautiful and terrible world—I found the radiance of Fry’s courage, flawed humanity, and steadfast resistance shedding an inexhaustible light on our own ever-darkening time. The first problem: If you read the description of this novel on Goodreads or even Book of the Month club, it will leave you to believe that you are getting a novel about a real historical person who smuggled Jewish artists out of France during the Holocaust.If we could pin down the moments when our lives bifurcate into before and after—if we could pause the progression of millisecond, catch ourselves at the point before we slip over the precipice—if we could choose to remain suspended in time-amber, our lives intact, our hearts unbroken, our foreheads unlined, our nights full of undisturbed sleep—would we slip, or would we choose the amber? For a period of time in 1940-41, with no ostensibly relevant operational experience but keenly aware of the dire nature of what was unfolding in Europe (based in part on what he’d earlier witnessed and reported from Germany), he represented a privately-organized American “Emergency Rescue Committee” on the ground in France. The pace sometimes frustrated me - for the first 300 or so pages, I was always aware of what page I was on.

Acțiunea romanului "Portofoliul fugii" este plasată în Marsilia anului 1940 și ni-l prezintă pe Varian Fry, un jurnalist american care preia conducerea "Energency Rescue Committee" JULIE ORRINGER is the New York Times best-selling author of two award-winning books: The Invisible Bridge, a novel, and How to Breathe Underwater, a collection of stories. Some 2,000 people were assisted by Fry and the Europeans and Americans with whom he worked to procure both valid and forged papers; arrange travel by car, train, ship, and foot; and finagle the occasional concentration-camp or jail release.Orringer worked on the book when she was the Lisa Goldberg Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2013–14. Fry, along with other wealthy Americans cognizant of the threat to Jews, form The Emergency Rescue Committee. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. But those challenges serve only to accent Fry’s story; they push his personal plot forward, but never meaningfully inform it. Though each rescue poses unique obstacles, the process resembles a revolving door—a refugee enters, gets stuck, exits, and another one comes along.