The Invisible Bridge - by Julie Orringer

This book has been on my "wish list" to read ever since we obtained it via our lease book program last year. It is longlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize for fiction. I decided it was time to read it.

Andras Levi, a Hungarian Jew, manages to secure a chance to study architecture in France. This book chronicles his time in France and his brother's chance to study medicine in Italy. Then they lose their student visas and must return home. The hardships suffered by them and by their families are chronicled in the book. I was a bit intimidated by the size of this book -- almost 600 pages, but I need not have worried. Orringer is a very skillful storyteller and kept my attention throughout the entire book. The characters are well drawn. The atrocities suffered by the Jews during the Holocaust are never easy to read, so be prepared to shed a few tears. I am impressed by the amount of research that the author must have done to write such a marvelous piece of historical fiction. 5 stars.

By the way, the library has three other Orange Prize nominees for this year on our Lease Book shelves: Room by Emma Donoghue, Great House by Nicole Krauss, and The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht.