Julie Orringerâs astonishing first novel, eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater (âfiercely beautifulââThe New York Times; âunbelievably goodââMonica Ali), is a grand love story set against the backdrop of Budapest and Paris, an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are ravaged by war, and the chronicle of one familyâs struggle against the forces that threaten to annihilate it.
Paris, 1937. Andras LÊvi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de SÊvignÊ. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letterâs recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life. Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europeâs unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. At the end of Andrasâs second summer in Paris, all of Europe erupts in a cataclysm of war.
From the small Hungarian town of KonyÃĄr to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the lonely chill of Andrasâs room on the rue des Ãcoles to the deep and enduring connection he discovers on the rue de SÊvignÊ, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in forced labor camps and beyond, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a love tested by disaster, of brothers whose bonds cannot be broken, of a family shattered and remade in historyâs darkest hour, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.
Expertly crafted, magnificently written, emotionally haunting, and impossible to put down, The Invisible Bridge resoundingly confirms Julie Orringerâs place as one of todayâs most vital and commanding young literary talents.
Julie Orringerâs astonishing first novel, eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater (âfiercely beautifulââThe New York Times; âunbelievably goodââMonica Ali), is a grand love story set against the backdrop of Budapest and ...