The Flight Portfolio refers to a collection of art that Varian Fry hopes will help the cause of Jewish artists trapped in early 1940s Europe. But most of his attention is not on the art, but on helping the artists escape Nazi capture. This is an ambitious novel that walks the tightrope of telling a historical figure's documented story while also creating his fictional love life.Mostly, Orringer succeeds brilliantly. The downside is that the momentum builds very slowly. The pace sometimes frustra...

Flight Portfolio is an ambitious, well written, lengthy novel using as its framework the life of Varian Fry. However it should be approached as a novel, not a biography, since there is an added key element of Fry's being gay, referenced by professional reviewers, which apparently did not have a basis in fact but is fabricated for plot purposes. It is very effective here since it makes for an exciting, poignant storyline. I admit to not having known about Fry and his organization operating out of...

I don't think a book has ever left me so confused as to how I want to rate it. Which is why I'm not rating it for now and maybe with time, I will be able to figure out what I want to rate the book. After a brief synopsis, I will explain my confusion.The Flight Portfolio is a historical fiction novel by Julie Orringer based on the life of Varian Fry. In 1940, France is occupied by Germany and the world is enveloped in another war. Varian Fry, an American journalist, travels to Marseille, France w...

I will be a naysayer here....I must be getting old because this novel is like so many others that are not doing it for me. The true story is so much better than this! And it is an important story about what was happening then, and also for our times. But this tritely written book is not the answer. Why turn this into fiction, with an understory of gay love that didn't happen and that detracts from the real happenings? And the dialogue is horrendous. Please, do yourself a favor and read the non-f...

I received a free publisher's advance review copy.I have always been interested in learning more about Varian Fry and his impressive efforts to get so many artists out of the reach of the Nazis and their minions. Of course I knew that this book is fiction, but I had the preconception that the fiction characterization would be necessary to assign thoughts and feelings to Fry that couldn’t be verified through historical records. It turns out there is a lot more fiction than that in this book.Orrin...

Why I love itby Brianna GoodmanBefore I tell you why I *loved* this book, let me tell you why I thought I wouldn’t: 1) It’s over 500 pages, which often makes me wish a book had been more harshly edited. 2) It’s about World War II, and, having read more World War II novels than I can count, I’ve grown tired of tropes that often repeat in these stories. 3) I picked it up during a massive reading slump that left me no choice but to binge-watch Game of Thrones. So when I tell you this book reignited...

I did not want this book to end.Don't Google Varian Fry before reading "The Flight Portfolio." Let the novel surprise you.Varian arrives in Vichy France in 1940, with $3000, a visa for a few weeks, and a list of Jewish artists he was to attempt to rescue. Fry is a Harvard graduate and a journalist of sorts. He's married to a woman who is a power at the powerful Atlantic magazine, and who is behind much of the the funding for this rescue effort. Arriving in Marseilles, he gathers a group of peopl...

Undoubtedly will make my year-end top ten.

I expected to enjoy this book much more than I did. It was very interesting to learn about Varian Fry, and his mission and that of his American committee to help famous artists, writers, philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, etc. get out of France to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis. And as lovely as the writing is, I found the book dragged and lagged for me in part because of the surfeit of detail. I love detail, but here it seemed that everything, from the smallest to the momentous

I put a lot of thought into how I was going to review this. I originally rated it as 2 stars, but the more I think about it, the more I have real and serious problems with this book that can't be ignored. There are two main problems with this book. The first is its misrepresentation of what kind of book it is, and the second is how it treats and portrays the legacy of people who existed, who mattered, and who have and had people who loved them.The first problem: If you read the description of th...

Although I thought the story interesting, the author's esoteric style is very off-putting. The author's depiction of homosexual behavior was a caricature - very fussy and stereotypically heavy on preoccupation with clothing and appearance.The tone of the book reminded me of films of that era (1940s) which could have been effective in setting the scene but the stilted dialogue seemed silly and distracting. Better editing to reduce this overly long book by a few hundred pages would have kept me en...

A summary of stars5—for how glad I am to have read this5—for an engaging read that taught me much I was unaware of4—for the writing, a little over dramatic at times and literary embellishments4—for its length5—for the characters, storyI chose to read this book as I’d loved The Invisible Bridge Orringer’s previous book that received much more acclaim. This was on my radar when it first came out but received mixed reviews yet seeing that the narration was by Edoardo Ballerini, my absolute favorite...

Throughout 1940 American and Harvard grad, Varian Fry, smuggled out of Marseille primarily Jewish avant garde artists. Flight Portfolio is a fictionalized account of Fry’s work with the Emergency Rescue Committee to save some of the most brilliant minds of Europe from the Nazis. Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Franz Werfel, Marcel DuChamp, and Hannah Arendt were among those who received aid. This historical novel is not just an exciting narrative of heroism and valor rooted in reality, al...

“To be in Marseille, not Paris, still carried a certain novelty, a whiff of the unknown. If Paris reeked of sex, opera, art, and decadent poverty, Marseille reeked of underground crime, opportunism, trafficked cocaine, rowdy tavern song. Paris was a woman, a fallen woman in the arms of her Nazi captors; but Marseille was a man, a schemer in a secondhand coat, ready to sell his soul or whatever else came quickly to hand”. It doesn’t take long to fall in love with Varian Fry... who was an American...

I have only read 20% of this novel but must write a small "review" already. I was so excited to learn months ago that Julie Orringer had written a novel, The Flight Portfolio, about the the work of Varian Fry. I started reading it as soon as it was published. To my increasingly great dismay and disbelief I find that Orringer has fabricated a male lover for Varian Fry. Not only that, but his obsession with this man takes up so much space in the book that it diminishes the focus on the real story,...

(4.5) Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge, my highlight from last summer’s reading, was the saga of a Hungarian Jewish family’s experiences in the Second World War; while The Flight Portfolio again charts the rise of Nazism and a growing awareness of Jewish extermination, it’s a very different though equally affecting narrative. Its protagonist is a historical figure, Varian Fry, a Harvard-educated journalist who founded the Emergency Rescue Committee to help at-risk artists and writers escape to th...

The GOOD. Orringer highlights the impressive role that Varian Fry played in saving the lives of more than 2,000 refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and the complicit Vichy government during 1940-41. The refugees included such famous personages as Hannah Arendt, Jacques Lifschitz, Golo Mann, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall and countless others. Fry went to Marseille as a volunteer for the Emergency Rescue Committee, which initially received support from Eleanor Roosevelt. The suffocating atmosphere of Marseill...

The Flight Portfolio, an incredible layered, important work of fiction with a touch of humor, is in some ways a Holocaust story, but more than that, it poses the question, is one person’s life more valuable than another. This survival story is about the Jews, the artists and their art, the people of France, and about prospering in your own skin, having a meaningful purpose and living your truth.Julie Orringer packs a punch with a multileveled, very engaging story. Varian Fry is a concerned Ameri...

This book was just boring even though the topic was interesting. I could not get past the writing style or sympathize with Varian and Grant. The best part was the reference to Alma Mahler, who I was familiar with through reading Ecstasy: A Novel, an actually good historical fiction that I highly recommend to anyone who can or even can't get through this.

4.5 stars rounded up. This is an exquisitely written book about Varian Fry and his efforts during the Nazi occupation of France to get Jewish artists safely out of France. Fry was an American journalist, working for the Emergency Rescue Committee, seeking ways to get artists and writers to America, when most legal avenues of immigration were blocked to them. Through cunning, bribery and sheer luck, he obtained visas, passports and travel papers, real and forged, to aid in their escape. Some of t...