Good Night, Irene

An Instant New York Times Bestseller This "powerful, uplifting, and deeply personal novel" (Kristin Hannah, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Four Winds), at once "a heart-wrenching wartime drama" (Christina Baker Kline, #1 NYT bestselling author of Orphan Train) and "a moving and graceful tribute to heroic women" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), asks the question: What if a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever? In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription, this is a searing epic based on the magnificent and true story of courageous Red Cross women. "Urrea's touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself." --Financial Times In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact. Taking as inspiration his mother's own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women's heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea's "gifts as a storyteller are prodigious" (NPR).… (more)

Subjects

Female friendship

Female friendship fiction

Red Cross and Red Crescent

Red Cross and Red Crescent Fiction

Women

1 more

World War, 1939-1945 Women Fiction

Fewer

Language

English

Original publication date

2023

Physical description

407 p.; 25 cm

Media reviews

National Public Radio (NPR)

Luis Alberto Urrea pays tribute to WWII's forgotten volunteers — including his mother...In an author's note to his panoramic historical novel, Good Night, Irene, Urrea tells us his mother was assigned to Patton's 3rd Army, trapped behind enemy lines in the Battle of the Bulge, and was with the

troops who helped liberate Buchenwald. Urrea also writes that his mother, who he now realizes suffered from undiagnosed PTSD, never spoke to him of her service. ..Urrea has written a female-centric World War II novel in the mode of an epic like Herman Wouk's The Winds of War, replete with harrowing battle scenes, Dickensian twists of Fate and unthinkable acts of bravery and barbarity...As befits a contemporary war novel, Good Night, Irene is morally nuanced

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NYT Times

In 1943, when Phyllis’s fictional counterpart, Irene, escapes her wealthy family’s home on Staten Island — leaving behind a predatory stepfather and a violent fiancé — she imagines that war might be like wandering through the woods, one of her favorite pastimes: “Ambling. Filling

notebooks with her own great thoughts. Perhaps some smoke drifting through the trees.” Needless to say, Irene’s illusions are soon shattered....Nicknamed “Doughnut Dollies,” the women become adept at deflecting advances, but it’s to Urrea’s credit that he doesn’t shy away from describing the shadow side of the job...Urrea writes about death with a sort of familiarity...Urrea has a weakness for melodramatic imagery...

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