Good Night, Irene: A Novel

Well written and engaging. Powerful perspectives about roles of women that are almost always erased in the history of life and world events.

A Vivid Piece of Little Known History

This incredible work of historic fiction brings to life the lives of a very special group of Red Cross women who served right along side the GIs of WWII. Manning cumbersome vehicles known as Clubmobiles, they served front line soldiers coffee, donuts and endless hours of support and empathy. The novel follows closely the route the author's mother and her fellow comrades took across Europe and across time. Each character is vividly drawn (wether from fact or fiction), each scene cinematic. A must read!

Who knew there were a group of women in WWII called the "Donut Dollies"? Not me!

These women were recruited by the Red Cross to drive into war zones in Clubmobiles (a big old food truck, basically), doling out coffee, donuts, good cheer (and a little bit more) to the Allied soldiers. Seems like a frivolous thing, but it meant a lot to the men who saw nothing but death and darkness otherwise. These women also put themselves in harm's way by being in the thick of the war, and some did not survive.

This book was actually inspired by the author's mother, who was one of the Dollies. She survived but had a harrowing experience during her service, and he built a fictional story around her real life.

Really interesting and enlightening!

Content warning for violence, war, death, domestic abuse/interpersonal violence, descriptions of concentration camps, state-sponsored violence, and related topics. I liked pieces of this novel, but it started slowly for me. I started to get more invested in the novel in the later 2/3 of it. I liked the characters, especially Dorothy, and the relationship between Dorothy and Irene. I wanted a little more out of Irene's relationship with Handyman, especially considering her experiences with her fiance. I liked the ending, and am pleased with the character development that we saw from both of the main characters.

“Clubmobiles…Mobile service. Comfort, moral support…backing the troops in the field. We make coffee and donuts. In trucks.” Irene Woodward intends to serve her country, “and this is what they’ll let me do. I have never made a donut in my life. I don’t know how to drive a truck. And the coffee I’ve made has been known to incapacitate its victims. So tell me, Sarge–you’re an expert. How will I do?” “She sipped her wine with profound ennui. ‘I’m hardly a girl, dear boy. I am a Red Cross warrior queen’...They didn’t feel like cooks, didn’t feel like waitresses…they were ass-kicking bitches…cooking up sweet smiles and brewing hot cups of joy…They each felt like war brides to a few thousand husbands…The most important part of their service was their blessing, their flirtation, their ‘Be careful! We’ll be here when you get back!’” “The D in D-Day stands for Donuts!” They joke until their first mission. “They had fallen out of the world they thought they knew and into a fragmentary place.” A world where bricks flew. Where roofs imploded. Where noise assaulted their ears into deaf silence. “The Occupation had been an opera of awful stupidity, with bellowing and sneering villains in the wings, outrages and swan songs, sirens and explosions and shortages and well-hidden crates of wine.” “Women are called upon to piece the broken world back together. The boys blow everything up. Including themselves. And then the rest of us. And we bind it all back together–the boys, the world, ourselves…To survive meant a lifetime of forgiving…in a haunted penance she could escape only now by deciding to forgive herself. Whatever lay on the other side of her door, she knew that today she would find reconciliation.” “It can’t be about killing. It has to be about living. Saving even one life…instead of a death for a death, a life for a death…We are all dead until we awaken, child.” “Irene, good night Irene, good night Good night, Irene, good night, Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams” So “unass that seat” and pick up your copy of Luis Alberto Urrea’s magnum opus Good Night, Irene today!