“Good Night Irene’ by Luis Alberto Urrea

The Red Cross providers of donuts, coffee and smiles to the American GI’s

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

My rating: 5 of 5 stars😊


“Goodnight Irene” is the first novel I have read by Luis Alberto Urrea. This historical novel follows two young women who leave their homes in 1943 for different reasons and head to Washington to apply for positions in the Red Cross “Donut Dolly” brigate. Apparently, the Red Cross had high standards for these applicants and only accepted one in six. Education, references, physical fitness, and bubbly personalities were required, and so our two protagonists Dorothy and Irene are interesting and smart! Urrea based his story on the experiences of his own mother as a Donut Dolly in WWII and created the character Irene from his mother Phyllis Irene.

One is tempted to draw comparisons and contrasts between “Goodnight Irene” and Kristen Hannah’s “The Women” since both are rare studies of women placed in harm’s way during war time. I found Urrea’s characters, especially Irene, to be more realistically complex than Frances McGrath of “The Women.” The narrator offers us access to Irene’s thought patterns during periods of intense trauma as well as in typical day-to-day life on the front. Both books have a love story element; however, the main relationship in “Goodnight Irene” is that of the friendship between Irene and Dorothy, two women from opposite backgrounds, with very little in common other than their devotion to their country and to each other. There are fights between them, periods of silent treatment, secrets kept, but ultimately it is the depth of this relationship, around which the rest of the story spins.

As with any story of war, the reader must expect tragedy, death, despair, and horror. Urrea smartly intersperses descriptions of beautiful countryside and even humor amidst the telling of difficult events. Certainly soldiers and volunteers would have to see some measure of joy and purpose and enjoy a laugh to maintain some sense of sanity . Some days there was no joy. One chapter deals with the ladies’ arrival at a liberated prison camp. Circumstances of war were more than some young ladies could handle and some left. Dorothy and Irene went through a few “third girls on the truck.”

The author takes some liberties with details, but he is faithful to the main historical events. His use of his mother’s letters and his historical research place the story of Irene and Dorothy soundly in the accurate places and stages of WWII Europe. PTSD hadn’t been named yet, but it is certain that it existed. Nightmares and invasive thoughts plague the women for decades after the war ends. Thank you, Luis Alberto Urrea, though, for writing a beautiful ending to this story. Most of us can handle anything as long as it ends well.

More about the Donut Dollies:https://redcrossnw.org/2021/06/03/the-wartime-tales-of-red-cross-donut-dollies/

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