The Invisible Bridge

The characters in Orringer's latest introduce themselves so sincerely, so deliberately, that by the time the novel's first few minutes tick by, the listener is already fully invested in their lives. Born into a close-knit Jewish family in Hungary, Andras departs for architecture school in Paris, where he meets people who change the course of his life. Unfortunately, all their lives are poised for drastic changes as WWII looms. Arthur Morey is masterful in his performance of this absorbing production. His voice is a velvet hammer: at once compassionate, gentle, forceful, and authoritative. His measured delivery of a beautifully written novel assuages some of the pain of watching these characters--seemingly real people--make lives for themselves under the growing shadow of Hitler's influence. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 1, 2010
Orringer's stunning first novel far exceeds the expectations generated by her much-lauded debut collection, How to Breath Underwater
. In this WWII saga, Orringer illuminates the life of Andras Lévi, a Hungarian Jew of meager means whose world is upended by a scholarship to the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris. There, he makes an unlikely liaison with ballet teacher Claire Morgenstern (née Klara Hász), a woman nine years his senior whose past links her to a wealthy Hungarian family familiar to Andras. Against the backdrop of grueling school assignments, exhausting work at a theater, budding romance, and the developing kinship between Andras and his fellow Jewish students, Orringer ingeniously depicts the insidious reach of the growing tide of anti-Semitism that eventually lands him back in Hungary. Once there, Orringer sheds light on how Hungary treated its Jewish citizens—first, sending them into hard labor, though not without a modicum of common decency—but as the country's alliance with Germany strengthens, the situation for Jews becomes increasingly dire. Throughout the hardships and injustices, Andras's love for Claire acts as a beacon through the unimaginable devastation and the dark hours of hunger, thirst, and deprivation. Orringer's triumphant novel is as much a lucid reminder of a time not so far away as it is a luminous story about the redemptive power of love.