This is the story of two young women, Irene (who is fleeing an abusive relationship) and Dorothy (who just wants to get away from her farm and do something to help the war effort). They both join the Red Cross in the US during WWII and get sent to Europe to drive vehicles that were basically concession trucks to provide the soldiers who were about to head into some of the largest battles of the war with some final food and warm drinks, as well as smiles and comfort. I was interested in this book partly because it’s another WWII book, partly because it’s about women’s experiences and fortitude, and partly because I’d simply never heard any mention that these women existed, let alone what they faced in their roles as so-called “Donut Dollies.”
These women were sent into the war – right up to the front lines – to drive vehicles called “clubmobiles” that provided coffee and donuts to the allied troops. Though they were seen as light and fluffy, their role only to cheer up the lads by flirting a little, these women were right in the thick of the war – at times right in the action. And yet they weren’t given any form of military training, weapons or means to fight or defend themselves. I suppose the expectation was that because they were pretty young women in Red Cross uniforms, they’d be immune to the threat leveled at the young men they were there to support. But this wasn’t always the case, and the women had some close calls along the way.
In this story we see exactly what these brave young women saw and did to survive and help their troops do the same. Far from being backstage to the action, they often ended up seeing enemy troops as they moved into villages, refugees fleeing the violence with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few belongings, and facing armed soldiers who got to decide if they would live or die. They met young men who were traumatized, who had seen death and who had been forced to do things they’d never imagined. They had to make decisions about what they wanted their role in the war to be, and what they would be willing to do to survive it – or aid it. And they had to deal with loss and pain along the way.
I won’t tell you what happens to either woman towards the end of the book, but I will say that neither walked away from their wartime experiences unscathed. But the bond that they formed during their service kept them going when they were barely able to function, and its effects on them survived well beyond the war.
I had a hard time connecting emotionally to the characters, which surprised me because we’re written into the thick of it with them, and we see them through all the harrowing experiences they have. But somehow I felt at a remove from them, and though I wanted to know what happened, I didn’t have a strong emotional response to much of the story. I don’t know why this was the case, and have been puzzling it over ever since finishing the book. The story is good, the characters do develop and learn, and it was a wonderful and unique perspective I’d never read before. I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who has read this – did anyone else have trouble connecting emotionally? Did you find this book hitting you harder than I did?
In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription, an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman’s heroic frontline service in the Red Cross
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). – Goodreads
Book Title: Good Night, Irene
Author: Luis Alberto Urrea
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook (Libby)
Published By: Little, Brown and Company
Released: May 30, 2023
Genre: Fiction, WWII, Semi-Biographical, Historical Fiction
Pages: 407
Date Read: March 9-22, 2025
Rating: 6/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.13/5 (25,536 ratings)
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