![]() ![]() The words on the cover are glorious praise, but buried deep in the second page, I found an unsettling critique: Ozick was perturbed that Julie’s fictional Varian Fry is portrayed as gay. Then I saw The Flight Portfolio featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, reviewed by fiction writer and critic Cynthia Ozick, who is now ninety-one. In her case: a breathtaking work of wonder, set in occupied France. ![]() ![]() It is an honor to watch a writer in the beginning stages of work, fiddling with their magician’s equipment, and an astonishment to see what flies, at last, out of their sleeve. ![]() Ten years have passed, and now we know: I wrote a novel called The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, and Julie has just published her novel The Flight Portfolio. Neither of us knew what we were about to make, nor could we make any sense of the pile of books the other had stashed in their office. Julie was researching the historical figure Varian Fry. I was researching New York City at various moments in the twentieth century, along with the history of AIDS in the city. We both had the extraordinary fortune to receive fellowships to do research for our novels. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Right, Julie Orringer įrom the fall of 2008 until the spring of 2009, I was colleagues with Julie Orringer at the Dorothy and Lewis B. ![]()
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