Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Historical adventure fiction

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE

Luis Alberto Urrea

What if a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever? In the tradition of Kristin Hannah's THE NIGHTINGALE and Kate Atkinson's TRANSCRIPTION, a searing epic based on the magnificent and true story of heroic Red Cross women.

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 buses 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 gallant 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).

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil's Highway, now in its 30th paperback printing, Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of numerous other works of nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, including the national bestsellers The Hummingbird's Daughter and The House of Broken Angels, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, among many other honors, he lives outside Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Available products
Book Published 2023-05-30 by Little Brown
Book Published 2023-05-30 by Little Brown

Comments

This powerful novel will be with me forever... Urrea brilliantly explores the psychologically damaging effects of war even while he conveys how the days of two Red Cross volunteers become ordinary.

Few delights bring as much comfort as good food, so imagine how cheering a good cup of coffee and a fresh donut would have been to soldiers on the front lines in World War II. But also imagine how women recruited to serve food to soldiers might view the value of their contribution when they see the life-and-death sacrifices those men had to make. That's one of the animating conflicts in the heartfelt novel Good Night, Irene from Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Alberto Urrea... Urrea writes memorable descriptions of war that strike the reader with devastating immediacy.

Urrea's electrifying language sneaks up on us. The 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist re-creates the time and place beautifully but allows room for surprise, building to the novel's crescendo. "Good Night, Irene" is a fleet-footed performance by a generous craftsman, underscoring the contributions made by the Greatest Generation's women.

Urrea bends a fertile bough from his own family tree in Good Night Irene, a sweeping novel loosely based on his mother's experiences as a plucky, rebellious Red Cross volunteer with the so-called Donut Dollies on the battlefields of WWII, and the love stories - both romantic and platonic - that followed her home.

His bittersweet novel, the product of years of research, is a tribute to his mother and the other volunteers of the American Red Cross Clubmobile Service, telling the little-known story of the "Donut Dollies"...

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE is a beautiful, heartfelt novel that celebrates the intense power and durability of female friendship while shining a light on one of the fascinating lost women's stories of World War II. Inspired by his own family history - and his mother's heroism as a Red Cross volunteer during the war - Luis Urrea has created an indelible portrait of women's courage under extreme adversity. Powerful, uplifting, and deeply personal, GOOD NIGHT, IRENE is a story of survival, camaraderie, and courage on the front line.

An extraordinary 6-page profile of the author and the "epic journey" of GOOD NIGHT, IRENE Read more...

Every once in a while the universe opens its heart and pulls out a book like this novel, gifting it to the cosmos. In Good Night, Irene, a new element has been created, and the literary world is reborn in the image of Luis Alberto Urrea. His voice comes alive on every page of this magnificent novel.

...a big-hearted gem...

This empathetic chronicle of love and heartbreak in the face of war is a treasure that we can't wait for readers to discover.

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE has gone straight to the top 15 on the New York Times bestseller list! It's also hit the top 15 on the National Indie bestseller list.

Good Night, Irene paints a touching portrait of female friendship and valor in wartime.

A heart-wrenching wartime drama, a rich portrait of friendship, and an exploration of the trials and triumphs of the human spirit, Good Night, Irene is historical fiction at its finest. Using the little-known true story of women who worked behind the front lines for the Red Cross during World War II, Luis Alberto Urrea weaves a novel about the enduring bonds, devastating losses, and heroism of ordinary people who put their lives on the line for freedom. This is a story that needed to be told and remembered.

Good Night, Irene isn't just a marvelous novel, though it is indeed marvelous. It's a marvelous novel that returns the brave Donut Dollies and the WWII Clubmobile Corps to their rightful place in history. With grace and compassion, Luis Alberto Urrea makes their story soar again.

A summer sleeper hit if there ever was...You can feel the Oscar-ready movie bubbling between the lines.

With each turn of the page, a feeling builds that Urrea is on his own quest, a decades-long journey to fill in the blanks of a period in his family history that his mother - struggling with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder - did not want to revisit ... Urrea ... has a gift for writing heart-pounding action scenes that are also lyrical.

Great read with Urrea's signature ear for unique, fast-paced dialogue. This lost slice of history in the well-worn tracks of WWII novels is fascinating!

Beautiful, flowing language illustrates the bonds between women serving in a little-known capacity in the European theater of WWII... As rewarding as historical fiction gets.

In this WWII epic, Luis Alberto Urrea captures the catastrophic scale of war through the eyes of Irene and Dorothy, two Red Cross enlistees. Their spry banter, secrets, and tender care make a story and a friendship you won't forget.

The New York Times also ran a moving essay by Luis Urrea about his mother recently (for Mother's Day) Read more...

Good Night, Irene is a marvel of storytelling, wrenching at times, breathlessly entertaining at others, a testament both to Urrea's sublime talent and to his mother's incredible life, which inspired this extraordinary novel.

A historical novelist's gold . . . Urrea wears his extensive research lightly, but his immersion in the existing documentation is clear . . . With Irene and her Clubmobile partner, Dorothy, he creates two distinct female characters . . . A master storyteller.

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... Irene is morally nuanced... Maybe, in Good Night, Irene, Urrea has written yet another powerful "border story" after all: this time about the border between those who live in blessed ignorance of the worst humankind can do and those who keep that knowledge to themselves, often locked in silence.

With cinematic verisimilitude and deep emotional understanding, Urrea opens readers' eyes to the female Red Cross volunteers who served overseas during WWII, delivering donuts, coffee, and homestyle friendliness to U.S. troops . . . WWII fiction fans, who have an abundance of options, should embrace Urrea's vivid, hard-hitting novel about the valiant achievements of these unsung wartime heroines.

A moving and graceful tribute to friendship and to heroic women who have shouldered the burdens of war.

This is a powerfully written novel. Through the experiences of Irene and her small group of women comrades, the larger historical picture is brought to light.