But he’s not the only one harboring great guilt, because Fry is grappling with a terrible secret of his own.Quantum information technologies create value because they work fundamentally differently from the way classical technologies do. Elliott is lying about his rescue efforts, too, in particular, his real reason for championing the rescue of young Tobias over the artist Zilberman. He’s a Jew, yes, but he also has African-American blood from his father, grounds for dismissal. Elliott has been lying to Columbia, where he teaches, and he has also lied to Yale and Harvard. What does it mean to be truly yourself, especially when revealing who you are can be a matter of life or death? Elliott and Fry are not just hiding that they are gay. Like everything in “The Flight Portfolio,’’ there are deeper levels of meaning. “American, rich, Protestant, Harvard-educated.” He says that he doesn’t know “how to live as what I am,’’ but Elliott points him to a difficult truth: “You’re already doing it.” “All my life I’ve enjoyed perfect privilege,’’ Fry tells Elliott. When he comes to Marseille and re-encounters Elliott, sparks are blazingly reignited, discombobulating Fry so that he is unsure what to do. They have an open marriage, but Fry finds himself dissatisfied, yearning for something he believes he cannot have. Wanting a regular life, needing to blend in, he marries a woman, Eileen.

Fry and Elliott loved each other during their college days, but Fry knew the price tag that came along with being gay. But what is the truth?Īlthough deeply concerned with politics, at its heart, the novel is a love story between Fry and a fictional and mysterious lover, Grant Elliot. Lev Zilberman, an older and important painter, insists that he should be rescued first, that Tobias is a fraud - and that they will all pay dearly for it, especially Zilberman. How do they choose the lucky ones? Fry is urged to consider a young genius, Tobias Katznelson, who is supposedly high on the Nazi’s list of dangerous people. Besides Chagall, there is Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and more. The roster of names Fry encounters in France is astounding. The art is chilling - a woman with her hair in flames, a child skeleton - but like Picasso’s famous “Guernica,’’ this is meant to open eyes and spark rage. A so-called Flight Portfolio is put together: 52 pieces of original works by major artists to be smuggled out and shown in America at the Museum of Modern Art (thanks to Peggy Guggenheim) to raise awareness and needed funds. There are, however, other ways of bearing witness, of making America take note of the suffering of refugees, and of spurring it to enter the war.

Julie orringer the flight portfolio