I spent the two days of the blizzard of 2010 in Paris and Hungary, mostly in Budapest but also hundreds of miles to the west and then to the east of the city. It was cold and snowy there, too, for some of the time. Andras Levi was a stranger at first, but he quickly made his way into my heart. I came to care deeply about him, his family, his friends, the woman he loved, and all that happened to them. I was angered and saddened by their tragedies and inspired by the way they continued to cling to hope and to love. When I finally returned from the pages of Julia Orringer's The Invisible Bridge, I continued to think about its people and events.

The story begins in Budapest with 23-year-old Andras Levi, the middle of three sons, about to leave for Paris on a scholarship to architectural school. Being Jewish, he has been denied this education in his homeland. His older brother, Tibor, is hoping to attend medical school in Italy; his younger brother is still in high school. Once in Paris, Andras becomes part of a group of other Jewish young men who band together against the discrimination toward them. He also falls in love with an older woman, a ballet teacher, who once lived in Budapest. Klara has a teenage daughter and a past that she will not reveal. France, like the rest of Europe, is putting more and more restrictions on Jews, and Andras first loses his scholarship, and then his visa. The latter necessitates a return to Budapest. Although it puts her life in danger, Klara insists on going with Andras.

But now World War II has begun and rather than being allowed to return to France, Andras is put into service. Because Jews were not allowed in the military, they were conscripted as service workers, digging roads, loading supplies, repairing bridges. Both of his brothers are also in service, and Andras fears for their safety as well as his own. Just when the lack of food and proper clothing, the infestations of lice, and the brutal beatings inflicted by sadistic commanders are about to break Andras, he is sent home to Budapest for several weeks—only to be called up again to suffer the same injustices and physical hardships. His sense of humor, loyalty to his fellow man, and longing for his family help to sustain him in bouts of deep despair.

Upon finishing the book and reading the acknowledgments, I wasn't surprised to find that the story is based on real people in Orringer's family. The intensity of her personal caring is what in part accounts for the power of the writing. The fact that the book covers several years in the lives of these people is what makes them so deeply and authentically developed. They are individuals but they are also symbols of what it meant to be Jewish in Europe during the years before and during World War II. It is the story of unspeakable atrocities done to the Jewish people and of the hope and love with which they met these injustices. The backdrop of the war provides a broad context in which to see both the individuals and the plight of the Jews.

The storm provided me with the excuse to do little else but read and this uninterrupted time with the characters drew me into their lives and let me experience them with a vividness that sporadic reading would not have allowed. One of last summer's hot and humid spells forced me into a similar escape—that time with Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. There again were richly developed characters followed over several years of their lives, the same complex relationships and moral choices, the same backdrop of national crisis, this time Ethiopia.

Both novels afforded me an escape, but in their pages I found the realities of history, of the human condition, and of my own connectedness.