What was the most challenging thing about writing the book?
Researching Fry’s life and mission took the better part of four years-a time during which I moved three times and gave birth to my two children-and writing and revision occupied the five years that followed. Which is not to suggest that no writing occurred during the initial research, nor that there was ever a time when the research ceased-it continued, in fact, through the last day I could change a word of the draft.Ģ. Nine years, more or less. While researching my last novel, The Invisible Bridge, which also took place during the Second World War, I read about the American journalist Varian Fry’s heroic work in Marseille: His mission was to locate celebrated European artists who’d fled to France from the Nazi-occupied countries and arrange their safe passage to the States. The job was fraught with moral complications-given limited time and resources, who would Fry choose to save?-and the historical account seemed to miss certain essential elements, particularly those surrounding Fry’s personal life (he had a number of well-documented relationships with men, a fact that historians elided, denied, or shuddered away from, as if to suggest that it’s not acceptable to be a hero of the Holocaust if one also happens to be gay).
How long did it take you to write The Flight Portfolio? Julie Orringer, author of The Flight Portfolio.ġ.
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