Coronado Public Library, in partnership with Warwick’s bookstore, will host author Luis Alberto Urrea as he discusses and signs his new book, Good Night, Irene. This event will take place on Friday, June 9 at 7pm in the Winn Room at the Coronado Public Library.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway, now in its 30th paperback printing, 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.
This event is free and open to the public. Free open seating is first-come, first-served, subject to available space. Limited preferred seating is available with purchase of Good Night, Irene through Warwick’s bookstore. For a reserved seat with purchase of a signed copy of the book, please click here or call the store at 858-454-0347.
About Good Night, Irene: 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 vehicles 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 courageous 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, 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).
