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Good Night, Irene

Luis Alberto Urrea

Start date: November 1, 2024

Finish date: November 19, 2024

Why we're reading this: Good Night, Irene is North Side Book Discussion's November selection! This book club will be held in pers…more
[close] Good Night, Irene is North Side Book Discussion's November selection! This book club will be held in person at North Side Library on Tuesday, 11/19 at 2:00 PM. Visit our website or call 515-283-4152 for more details.

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Apr 10, 2025 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography-memoir, fiction, history, library

Good Night Irene Review
I should have read author Luis Alberto Urrea’s “Author’s Note and Acknowledgement” in the back of the book first, because it would have convinced me that the ferociousness and horror of the Clubmobile ladies service was depicted in a realistic way in this historical novel. Set at the very end of World War II, when German troops were in retreat and the Allies and lots of American troops were following them and pushing them ever deeper into eastern France and the alpine regi Good Night Irene Review
I should have read author Luis Alberto Urrea’s “Author’s Note and Acknowledgement” in the back of the book first, because it would have convinced me that the ferociousness and horror of the Clubmobile ladies service was depicted in a realistic way in this historical novel. Set at the very end of World War II, when German troops were in retreat and the Allies and lots of American troops were following them and pushing them ever deeper into eastern France and the alpine region of southern Germany, I mused “How could the higher ups in charge of the Clubmobiles have sent these women to the front lines when they knew entire French villages were still being blown up and the prison camps in the German mountains (Buchenwald) were so horrifying that the soldiers could not bear it?” I did not believe General Patton would stop by the Rapid City clubmobile and demand, though he had no right to, that Dorothy and Irene go up to nearby Buchenwald the next day to deliver donuts and coffee and a smile and good cheer to the American soldiers still there finishing up the liberation of that prison camp. The “Author’s Note and Acknowledgement” did not speak to whether that incident was fiction, but in other ways the research in that note led me to believe much of the other realities of front line service that the ladies faced in the novel. His own mother Phyllis Irene, deceased at the time of Urrea’s writing, and co-workers Jill and Helen are pictured in the front piece of the novel beside their Clubmobile. In many ways he modeled fictional Irene’s background and grit on his mother. Friend Jill’s correspondence and interviews with the author resulted in him modeling some of fictional Dorothy on Jill. His interview with Jill confirming that the author’s mother had a beau on the beach at Cannes was one of the things that let Mr. Urrea to create the fictional “Handyman”. The other confirmation of “Handyman’s” existence was the note inside his mother’s bedroom door knob.

The detail in Urrea’s writing was exquisite. It was a long book and included detail about the guns and tanks that I skipped through, but the beauty of the forests and surrounding countryside contrasting with the utter destruction of wholesale villages was arresting. I agree with the premise that what these heroic women brought to the soldiers was much more than donuts and coffee. They brought a moment of hope in the bleakest territory that young men will ever face. I am grateful to my book club for bringing these moments of history to light.
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