A powerful book. It is the story of the Levi brothers, three young Hungarian Jewish men. In 1937 the two older brothers leave Budapest to pursue careers, Tibor in medicine, Andras in architecture. In Paris, Andras encounters the architectural wonders of the city, makes fast friends and meets the love of his life. Paris is described as seen through an architect’s eye, the proportions of the Opera, the sweep of its staircase. There are well rounded portraits of the people he encounters in the theatre where he helps design sets to earn extra money.
Shadows of anti-semitism darken his world from time to time, but he and his friends have been toughened all their lives against these hurts and attempted humiliations. But eventually they are overwhelmed by the madness of Hitler’s nazis.
The second portion of the book describes the brutality and horrors of the work camps into which the brothers are drafted in different parts of Europe, and makes for very difficult reading. Orringer, however, shows the underground kindnesses and generosity among the fellow sufferers, which allows them to survive. Her concluding scene affirms the power of love and the strength of family. “The Invisible Bridge” has the power and sweep of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” though it is set in a much crueler and more violent world than the one in which he wrote.
(Published in 2009 by Random House)
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