Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of a just released novel “Good Night, Irene,” which is based on his mother’s experiences with the Red Cross Clubmobile Services in WWII..  

The author knew that his mother had been a "Donut Dolly" during World War II.  His mother was injured at the end of WWII after a jeep accident in the Bavarian Alps.  Like many soldiers returning after the war, his mother never talked about her experiences and suffered with nightmares and unexplained outbursts of anger. 

Urrea's mother was one of a team of three women travelling with the troops in a GMC truck fitted with a galley with huge electric urns for making coffee and a doughnut machine, a record player, and sometimes letters from family to deliver to soldiers. The women were trained to always be a friendly face, ready to listen, comfort and encourage. But the Donut Dollies were also witnesses to everything that happened during the war. And they suffered from PTSD and all the battle issues endured by soldiers.

Following her death, Urrea looked through his mother's mementos in an Army trunk and began to research her Red Cross experience. He located and interviewed one of the women who had served with her as a Donut Dolly and traveled to the locations where his mother had served.  "Good Night, Irene" is the fictionalized accounting of the dreams and experiences of Donut Dollies, Irene and Dorothy,  young women in WWII who joined the Red Cross Clubmobile Service and traveled to the front to support the Allied Troops.

Read about the book in the New York Times My Mother Returned from WWII a Changed Woman

Read The New York Times book review.

Join the ARCRA and ARCOA co-sponsored webinar Friday, July 28, 2023 at 12:00 noon to 1:30 PM ET.  Luis Alberto Urrea  will share his mother’s story and his challenge in researching the book, as there are few official records for the women in WWII and few of the “Greatest Generation” still with us.

Click here to the link for the webinar information..