Flight Portfolio Soars

Author Julie Orringer has delivered the best novel I've read this year, a book that I hope will connect with readers on so many levels. Another in that extremely popular genre that I refer to as "fictional biography," a genre that I've criticized in the past for taking far too much leeway, "The Flight

Portfolio," shines with authenticity. Orringer appears to have done due diligence and extensive research to get the facts just right while bringing both the fictional and actual characters to full, glorious life.

The novel is set in and around Marseille, France, in 1940 -41, as the Nazis have invaded and installed the pro-fascist Vichy government. Journalist Varian Fry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varian_Fry) had been a foreign correspondent stationed in Berlin in the late 30's and had become more and more alarmed by the increasing aggression toward Jews as Hitler built his movement. Writing for newspapers in New York City where his wife worked as an editor for "The Atlantic," Fry caught the eye of the Emergency Rescue Committee, an organization touted by Eleanor Roosevelt, funded by the American Red Cross, and covertly protected by some cooperative members of the State Department.

With three thousand dollars in his pocket, Fry lands in Marseille with a mandate to build a network that will identify Jewish artists, scholars, thinkers, and writers (think Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst) who might be deemed a threat to the Reich, and through bribery and subterfuge, arrange false documents that might enable them to escape France, on foot, by train, or smuggled in boats, for the neutrality of Portugal or North Africa and eventually to repatriate in the United States.

Orringer's depiction of the port city vividly captures the climate of fear that stalks the locals, the private back rooms in restaurants owned by those with protected status where meetings are held, black market meats and liquors are still served, and distrust runs deep. Who is a collaborator? Who works for the Resistance? Who will leak a word or phrase that might result in Fry or one his small but determined aids being hauled off to prison or worse, sent north?

So realistically does Orringer build the tension and suspense that my stomach was in knots throughout the reading of this incredible novel. I've always been drawn to this time in history, to the ferocious bravery and selflessness of those who worked to subvert the Nazi machine, marveling at their resilience and wondering how I might have responded in the face of such evil.

The terrifying historical aspect of the book is tempered by a secondary, beautifully rendered story of a forbidden but life-long love affair between the married Fry and his former Harvard roommate, fictionally named Elliot Grant. How their paths cross in France after years with no communication between them dovetails perfectly with the controversial aspect of the ERC. How are lives valued? Why is one person worthy of rescue and another not? With increasingly limited funding, a state department in crisis mode now distancing itself from the rescue group, Fry and his associates must weigh human lives in the balance and abandon those whose worth comes up short.

Rife with moral dilemmas for which there may be no answers, this novel cries out for discussion. It is on the scholar Elaine Newton's shortlist for evaluation next season and I do hope she chooses it. Even better would be if she could bring in Ms. Orringer who brought me to tears throughout this lovely book. So often writers create characters who seem to have not an ounce of redeeming grace. Ms. Orringer's characters, both real and imagined, are frustratingly human, eminently loveable, and shockingly heroic. I hated leaving their company!