The Invisible Bridge

By: Julie Orringer

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 27 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Julie Orringer’s astonishing first novel, eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater (“fiercely beautiful” - The New York Times; “unbelievably good” - Monica 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 family’s struggle against the forces that threaten to annihilate it.

Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, 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 Sévigné. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s 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, Europe’s unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. At the end of Andras’s second summer in Paris, all of Europe erupts in a cataclysm of war.

From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the lonely chill of Andras’s room on the rue des Écoles to the deep and enduring connection he discovers on the rue de Sévigné, 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 history’s 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 Orringer’s place as one of today’s most vital and commanding young literary talents.

©2010 Julie Orringer (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"One of the best books of the year."—Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“If you’re still looking for a ‘big’ novel to carry into the summer holidays—one in which you can lose yourself without the guilty suspicion that you’re slumming—then Julie Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge is the book you want. . . . Stunning. . . . In every admirable sense an ‘ambitious’ historical novel, in which large human emotions—profound love, familial bonds and the deepest of human loyalties—play out against the backdrop of unimaginable cruelty. . . . Orringer traverses this perilous rhetorical terrain with remarkable—and, more important, convincing, self-possession. . . . Remarkably affecting. . . . A life powerfully, unsentimentally and inspiringly evoked in this gracefully written and altogether remarkable first novel.”—Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times

“The Invisible Bridge deserves to be praised. It takes the introspective themes we’ve loved so well in American literature—from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself to A. M. Homes’s Music for Torching—and points them in a different direction. . . . Rendered in sweeping, epic fashion . . . a close look at the terrible ways that enormous historical events can affect individual lives. . . . The strength of The Invisible Bridge lies in Orringer’s ability to make us care so deeply about the people of her all-too-real fictional world.”—Andrew Ervin, The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)

The “visible” Bridge

This book written with straightforward words brought life to what must have been my family’s world in Hungary.

I am touched and grateful for the author who was young when she wore this.

Congratulations to a superb description of what so many try to forget and mask.

Brava

Excellent read

I wouldn't be put off by the scoffs at the narrator and not read this book. Mr. Morey has a pretty poor French accent, but otherwise he reads well
and the book should nor be missed. Excellent story and wonderful characters.

Great listen.

Epic story, elegant writing, I cried. I had a hard time getting into the narration at first--his style is kind of flat, but by the end of the book I thought of it as being neutral.

a very rich and lovely story

This is a very long story and should not be read unless one is willing to put in the time. However it is well worth your time. It is a story about a young man who leaves Hungry to go to Paris on an academic scholarship to become an architect. it shows his struggle with assimilating from pre-war to then during the war and how his life is completely turned over due to his status of being a Jew and also as he embarks on a new marriage and family. It is very detailed and the writing is absolutely beautiful. I found I liked the book more and more as it went along and the ending will not disappoint you.

Harrowing Account of Holocaust in Hungary

What made the experience of listening to The Invisible Bridge the most enjoyable?

The story is told through the journey of one Hungarian Jewish family from comfortable assimilation to persecution and devastation at the hands of both the Germans and Hungarians. It is exquisitely written.

What did you like best about this story?

It was heartbreaking, describing the ruthless brutality and unfairness of the oppressors. It was rich in both specific details of events, and in the emotional and psychological journeys of the protagonists.

What about Arthur Morey’s performance did you like?

His sensitive reading made each character distinct.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, though I couldn't wait to get back to it once I put it down.

Any additional comments?

A superb book. One of the finest books about the Holocaust.

Long, but worth it.

Orringer has drawn a very well-crafted story from an important history, revealing a culture, geography, and series of events that are too-little known by Western readers. Worth reading.

For a story that takes place in part in France, the narrator’s pronunciation of French is quite painful and distracting. Otherwise it was read with high skill.

Amazing!

This book made you feel every emotion. I don’t know how anybody survived that time in
history. One of the best book I have listened to .

Riveting

I just returned from time in Hungary. This book brought history alive. Beautifully written. The narration so well done.

Great writing technique, and wonderful, level read

The book has a lot of build up to the "action" of the war, and I've heard some negative comments about the sentimentality of the writing. However, I found it beautifully written and wonderfully performed!

To “live” despite all

I liked that it was a story of a family from before during and after World War ll. I had a hard time reading/ listening to all the cruelties. How human beings are so cruel to each other and that no matter what humans will not learn from history and it repeats…
It was a “real” story. Learned a lot about Hungary.