Good Night, Irene

Warwick’s, in partnership with Coronado Public Library, presents

Luis Alberto Urrea

Good Night, Irene

Friday, June 9, 2023 - 7:00pm PDT

Coronado Public Library

640 Orange Ave.

Coronado, CA 92118

Reserve Seats Here

This event is free and open to the public, subject to available space. Guaranteed Preferred Seating is available with purchase of GOOD NIGHT, IRENE through the green "Reserve Seats Here" button above.

PLEASE NOTE: This event is free and open to the public; free admittance is subject to available space. Limited open seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To ensure seating, we encourage you to pre-order one book per seat through Warwick’s for everyone in your party.

On Friday, June 9th at 7:00pm Warwick's, in partnership with Coronado Public Library, will host Luis Alberto Urrea as he discusses and signs his new book, Good Night, Irene. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil's Highway, now in its 30th paperback printing, Luis Alberto 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.

Free open seating is first-come, first-served, subject to available space.
Guaranteed Preferred Seat holders will receive a copy of Luis Alberto Urrea's book when they check in. Guaranteed seating is unnumbered and first-come, first-served.
Please call the Warwick's Book Department at 858-454-0347 for more information.

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, 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).