The Flight Portfolio

Starred review from March 25, 2019
Orringer’s magnificent novel is centered around American journalist Varian Fry’s work helping imperiled refugees out of Nazi-occupied France. In 1940, Fry leaves his wife and job behind in New York and travels to Marseille for the Emergency Rescue Committee, formed to get prominent intellectuals and creative artists safely to America. Faced with meager resources, an enormous task, and suspicion from both the Vichy and U.S. governments, Fry makes anguished decisions about which “clients” to help and which to leave in danger. Then he is contacted by his one-time Harvard classmate Elliott Schiffman Grant, with whom he shared an intense mutual attraction. “Skiff,” who vanished from Fry’s life without explanation 12 years before, wants helps getting his German-born Jewish lover, Gregor Katznelson, and Katznelson’s son out of Europe. Fry falls in love with Grant again as he makes increasingly high-stakes decisions about who, and what, to save. As in 2010’s superb The Invisible Bridge, Orringer seamlessly combines compelling inventions with complex fact: figures including Marc Chagall and Andre Breton make vivid appearances, while Skiff and his relationship with Fry are unforgettable fictional creations. Brilliantly conceived, impeccably crafted, and showcasing Orringer’s extraordinary gifts, this is destined to become a classic. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management.

In 1940, thousands of Jews in France tried to escape the Holocaust, their flights financed by wealthy American Jews. Edoardo Ballerini narrates this fictional account of Varian Fry, the real-life American journalist who bravely orchestrated the journeys of thousands of European Jews from France. The intensity of actual events is beautifully reconstructed in the author's poignant prose, and Ballerini's graceful, powerful narration does it justice. Ballerini portrays Fry's agony at having to choose which artists and intellectuals would be selected for deliverance. Ballerini gives Fry a more sensitive tone for his dialogues with Grant, his homosexual lover (who may or may not be entirely fictional), but Ballerini's greatest contribution to this audiobook is his subtle portrayals of desperate German and French Jews. N.M.C. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine