“Masterfully crafted and impossible to put down, The Flight Portfolio offers a testament to the enduring power of art, and love, in any form.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
This is an historical novel about the life of Varian Fry who at the beginning of WW2 is living in southern France, working for a group of American People who are attempting to get as many foreign writers, painters and artists to escape the hold of the Nazi’s and to come to America.
The story is told though the relationship with Varian and Elliott Grant, a totally fictitious character who is a former lover of Varian’s. Grant has come back into Frey’s life to get his aide helping his current lovers son escape to America. The son is a brilliant physicist who would be better helping the allies side than helping the Germans.
This is a mix of a love story and an old spy adventure. Fry tries to keep one step a head of the Vichy Government in France, putting his own safety on the line as he over and over again helps to seek and then sneak out people high on the list of those Germany desperately wants to keep in their own backyard.
It is a terrific story that will hold your interest from beginning until end. At 553 pages it’s a little long but your interest should never waiver. The only thing I will bring to your attention is that the book reads like a conventional love story but is homosexual, not heterosexual so if you haven’t read anything like this before, depending on your feelings of the issue, it might affect your comfort level of the reading of the book Otherwise this is a very strong second effort by the author.
Her debut novel The Invisible Bridge was excellent.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by:
Richard Franco
Added 13th August 2019
