Among his many clients were Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Marc Chagall.Īt the novel’s core is a provocative moral question: How do we weigh human lives? Is the life of a great artist any more valuable than that of an ordinary human being? And how might our personal concerns-embodied, in these pages, in the return of a powerful and unconventional love-shape our own actions and the fates of others? With a group of like-minded New Yorkers he formed the Emergency Rescue Committee, whose mission was to help threatened artists and writers emigrate to the States in 1940 he flew to Marseille as the Committee’s on-the-ground leader.Īmid the chaos of wartime France, and in defiance of the United States’ restrictive immigration policies, he procured false passports, secured visas, sought out escape routes through the Pyrenees and by sea, and every day made impossible decisions about who should be saved-all while under profound pressure, and in a state of irrevocable personal change. Varian Fry, a Harvard-educated journalist and editor, recognized the darkness descending over Europe and decided to take action. The Flight Portfolio tells the story of one young American’s quest to save the lives of artists and writers fleeing the Nazis after the invasion of France.

From award-winning author Julie Orringer: a gripping, emotionally powerful narrative that, like her first novel, The Invisible Bridge, brilliantly juxtaposes the sweep of history with the fate of the individual.

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer