The Flight Portfolio

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They combed through his student file at Harvard, a rich trove that contained, among other things, his Harvard application, letters from his professors and the dean and his parents, all his grade transcripts, and a record of every place he lived in Cambridge. The romance that occurs in this book has no basis in history and really does not contribute anything at all to the plot of the story in any way.

Erika Dreifus, a former lecturer on history and literature at Harvard, is the author of Quiet Americans: Stories, which was named an American Library Association/Sophie Brody Medal honor title for outstanding achievement in Jewish literature.In her review of the novel for The New York Times Book Review, Cynthia Ozick devoted significant space to Orringer’s vision of Fry’s sexual life; two weeks later, the Book Review published a full page of letters in response. She makes it clear the difficult choices that Varian Fry had to make every day, and how doing them saved thousands of Jewish lives. Orringer details in her book how the US consul general, Hugh Fullerton, tried thwarting the mission’s efforts from saving Jews. But, more disturbing is the role that Hugh Fullerton, the consul general, played to thwart the efforts of the Emergency Rescue Committee at the request of Cordell Hull, the Roosevelt administration’s Secretary of State.

Join now to access our Study Guides library, which offers chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive analysis on more than 5,000 literary works from novels to nonfiction to poetry. An outstanding book for anyone who likes historical fiction, a gripping story, lyrical writing, or all three. Giving Fry such a choice makes “The Flight Portfolio” a more engrossing read, but robs it of some value. Focusing exclusively on the artistic implications, however—considering the effects of Orringer’s choices on the novel as a novel—one discerns some pitfalls in the parallel plotline.As with the experience of reading James, too, one can’t help but notice that the descriptive prose expands the novel—in The Flight Portfolio’s case, to well over 500 pages. I also had only a vague impression of most of Varian’s colleagues, and there are a few too many Mantel-esque “he, Varian”-type constructions to clarify which male character is acting. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the miniseries a score of 64 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Less enticing, but as real, is the state of surreal suspension, spiked with sex and no small amount of alcohol, in which that community finds itself. McCurry, a feminist historian, traces three narratives to argue that “there is no Civil War history without women in it.