Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
I started this book expecting to read about the operation to enable the escape of 'at risk' artists from Europe during WW2, but by the end of 10% in there has been a little about the selection process and a lot about the main character's friendships and romances. Since this novel is based in fact I expected the information provided to be accurate, but this was not so. I would not have chosen to read this book if the 'blurb' had been accurate; that's not say it is uninteresting, it is only nothing I want to read about. 'The American Wife' by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger gave the sort of picture I expected from this story.

A novel based on the true story of the US journalist Varian Fry and his involvement in World War Two France. The story was overlong and though Fry is a charismatic character I failed to engage with the narrative.

I started reading this, got about 35 % in and decided it was not for me. I normally enjoy World War 2 books but I found that I cared little for the characters in this one. When I realised how long the book was I decided to give up.
It is the story of an American, Varian Fry who transpired to be a real historical figure: his World War 2 job was rescuing famous artists and anti Nazis from Vichy France.
There was a lot of extraneous detail but I just didn’t feel that the characters were coming alive for me. There was also very little tension in the plot despite the fact it was set at a dangerous period during the war.
I can see that there has been a lot of research done by the author, which I applaud but to me it read too much like a kind of biography without all the facts being exact. The love affair which is described in great detail is not something that is even mentioned in Varian’s Wikipedia page and yet the author devoted many pages to it with a lot of “yearning” for Varian and Grant’s time at Harvard when they first met.
I’m sure others will enjoy this book but unfortunately it just did not inspire me to pick it up.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

Based on the real life story of Varian Mackey Fry this incredibly emotional and well written novel explored many aspects of life in France under the Nazi occupation.
Fry was an American journalist who helped work on the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) based in Marseille where he had arrived with a 'list' of Jewish intellectuals/artists for whom both money, papers and safe passage were to be organised to leave France.
The details of the illegal actions of Fry and his team are meticulous and portray a somewhat elitist ideal perhaps of who was to be helped - such as Marc Chagall the painter, Golo Mann (son of writer Thomas) and Walter Mehring the German poet. It offers an insight into the persecution of intellectuals in Germany and how often the French turned spies to expose the inner resistance of those like Fry to aid escape.
This is of course written from an American aspect and at times had the feel of Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' with Fry's often inferiority within the class/education system of America being escaped to where he was an equal with those for whom his abilities sought to reflect.
We meet Fry's Harvard pupil, Elliott Schiffman Grant, and it is soon obvious they have had a torrid sexual relationship for which for many years Varian has blamed his inability to face his own sexual desires. This is heightened particularly in the scenes in Arles where the lovers escape on bikes to share a romantic break. The writing is touching and set amongst wonderful scenery - sexual tension at its best.
However is this a true reflection on Varian's life? He married Eileen and although they seemed to share a good marriage she later died and he quickly remarried. At no point in looking up background did I find mention of Varian's homosexuality.
However that doesn't detract from the literary appeal of this novel of WWII. Often many books set out a tired tale of the obvious stereotypes involved in warfare. This moves to the intimacies of a closed little world of both the rich and the famous - helping or sometimes hindering their escape from Nazism and any continued flourishing of their talents.
I enjoyed it greatly. Felt immersed totally in Southern France at that time, where despite food shortages there was still 'good wine' yet once again despaired of man's inhumanity to man.

I really enjoyed Julie Orringer’s 2011 novel The Invisible Bridge, about a Hungarian-Jewish student who leaves Budapest to study architecture in Paris during World War II, so I was looking forward to reading The Flight Portfolio – but I have to say, it's a book with almost 600 pages and it really felt like one. I think it could easily have been a lot shorter!

The plot is quite a fascinating one, set in the same period as The Invisible Bridge, but this time based on the true story of a real historical figure: Varian Fry, an American journalist who helped thousands of Jewish refugees to escape from Occupied France. I knew nothing about Fry before starting this book, so it was interesting to read about the rescue network he created in Marseille – part of the Emergency Rescue Committee – where he and a group of other volunteers had an intricate system in place to provide people with fake documents and then to smuggle them across the border into Spain and from there to America.

However, the people Fry and the ERC rescue are not just anyone – they are what Fry describes as ‘the intellectual treasure of Europe’, famous artists, writers and philosophers, chosen based on their talent. This bothered me from the beginning – while I can understand the desire to save the life of someone who could potentially go on to provide pleasure and inspiration for millions of others, surely the lives of people without those particular talents have just as much value – so I was pleased that the characters do eventually begin to question and discuss the moral issues their work raises. It was also nice to come across Heinrich and Golo Mann as two of the refugees being rescued (Thomas Mann’s brother and son, who appeared in another of my recent reads, The Magician by Colm Tóibín). I love finding connections like that between books I’ve read and it was interesting to see Heinrich and Golo from the perspective of the person coordinating their escape, rather than just hearing about their adventures after they’d already reached safety, as we did in The Magician.

I felt that this book was much less exciting than it could have been, though. I never really got a true sense of the danger these people were in, which was disappointing as I’d expected a thrilling, suspenseful story. Maybe this is because the book concentrates mainly on the administrative side of the rescue scheme – obtaining visas, offering bribes, dealing with the US Consul and the Marseille police – or maybe there were just too many different writers, artists and intellectuals appearing in the story, making it difficult for me to become emotionally invested in any of them. A bigger problem for me was the amount of time Orringer devotes to a fictional romance between Fry and an old friend from Harvard, Elliot Grant. There seems to be some controversy over whether or not the real Varian Fry had homosexual relationships (we do know that he was married to Eileen Hughes, editor of Atlantic Monthly); however, although I don’t mind the author inventing a love story for Varian, it did seem that it became the main focus of the story for large sections of the book and the important work he was doing with the ERC was pushed into the background.

The Flight Portfolio wasn’t quite what I’d hoped it would be, but it was good to learn a little bit about Varian Fry and as I did love The Invisible Bridge, I would be happy to read more Julie Orringer books in the future.

Extremely interesting and informative about how Varian Fry managed to get more than a 1000 refugees out of France. Whether with legal or illegal means, Fry and his team showed an incredible resilience and courage (carelessness?) . Fry also has a huge secret, and one might wonder whether this pushed him so relentlessly to fight for other oppressed people. I found particularly thought provoking the fact that his job was to save artists, writers at the expense of others not as gifted: how is Fry going to deal with this! Are people to be given an economic value, that is, are some more valuable than others? Thought provoking indeed when taking Hitler's political position of those days in consideration... Highly recommended!
I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily a review.

I love historical fiction and this book was incredible it made me feel claustrophobic whilst reading it in the best way. It was well written with a compelling storyline and well developed characters that I loved. I was gripped right from the start and engaged the whole way through