The Flight Portfolio

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I can understand why some readers would give the Flight Portfolio 5 stars and why others would give it 3 stars or less. From a five star rating perspective, the book is both well-written and researched and Varian Fry's story needed to be told. Orringer explored some incredibly imp

The rescue team needed to pay forgers to make counterfeit travel documents stamped with exit visas. In addition, they needed to find people who could smuggle these people out of France, either by foot or by boat. Incredibly, Fry and his devoted team succeed in saving more than 2,500 people. If Not for Varian Fry – The Nazis would have killed Marc ChagallThere are so many issues in this story: who is worth saving and why; how far would you go to save your child; what are you willing to risk to live your life authentically; how many forms can love take, and what will you do to keep it; what are you willing to risk to save others. And because the situation is a mixture of the real and fictional, a construction purposely engineered to invite those questions, it neatly evades the real complexities of life at war, in which most choices do not clearly pit your heart’s desire against the cultural future of the Jewish people, and possibly the world. Giving Fry such a choice makes “The Flight Portfolio” a more engrossing read, but robs it of some value. Orringer is clearly aware of that. At key points, various characters pop up to usefully remind Fry that his entire quest is based on a questionable qualitative measure of the worth of human lives, and is, therefore, perhaps less than fully heroic. But those challenges serve only to accent Fry’s story; they push his personal plot forward, but never meaningfully inform it.

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 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. On the whole, though, this is historical fiction at its best. It conveys how places smell and sound with such rich detail. The sorts of descriptive passages one skims over in other books are so gorgeous and evocative here that they warrant reading two or even three times. The story of an accidental hero torn between impossible choices is utterly compelling. I’m convinced, if I wasn’t already, that Julie Orringer is among our finest living writers, and this is my top novel of 2019 so far. 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.

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In addition to telling the story of how Fry & his team managed to save so many Jewish artists, the book also delves into Fry’s personal life. Fry was in fact a closet homosexual. In the book, you will read about Fry’s love affair with another man. Fry was in fact ‘happily’ married to a woman in the States. Extraordinary. . . . Orringer has delivered a story with a splendid cast of characters and an intoxicating portrait of a time and place. . . . There’s suspense and tragedy, unexpected twists and deliverance.”— The Seattle Times