Week 12: Good Night, Irene
AUG. 30, 2023 • CAMP TOB WEEK 12
Good Night, Irene
second half discussion
Welcome to our final discussion at Camp ToB 2023! This time around, we’re wrapping up Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea.
And joining us again is Activity Leader Martha—aka @flamingob in the Commentariat—who’s here to take us through Good Night, Irene’s final pages.
Thank you, everyone, for joining us this summer. We’ll see you again in a couple of months, when we announce the long list for the 2024 Tournament of Books!
Now take it away, Martha!
-
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.
This has been excerpted from the publisher’s summary and edited for length.
Martha: Hello again! Here are some questions for the second half of Good Night, Irene:
I found myself very moved by the combat scenes. What do you think about Urrea’s writing style in the scene in France and in Bastogne?
Why do you think Dorothy and Irene didn’t confirm the others death? Was it just trying to avoid the pain or did they prefer to imagine their friend at peace?
Do you think Irene and Handyman would have been a successful couple if he had survived the war, or was theirs fated to be a short-term romance?
Having finished the book now, I wish we could have spent more time with post-war Dorothy and Irene. Do you think that Dorothy’s turn to the maternal was at all surprising? What about Irene becoming reclusive?
Welcome to the Commentariat
To keep our comments section as inclusive as possible for the book-loving public, please follow the guidelines below. We reserve the right to delete inappropriate or abusive comments, such as ad hominem attacks. We ban users who repeatedly post inappropriate comments.
Criticize ideas, not people. Divisiveness can be a result of debates over things we truly care about; err on the side of being generous. Let’s talk and debate and gnash our book-chewing teeth with love and respect for the Rooster community, judges, authors, commentators, and commenters alike.
If you’re uninterested in a line of discussion from an individual user, you can privately block them within Disqus to hide their comments (though they’ll still see your posts).
While it’s not required, you can use the Disqus <spoiler> tag to hide book details that may spoil the reading experience for others, e.g., “<spoiler>Dumbledore dies.<spoiler>”
We all feel passionately about fiction, but “you’re an idiot if you loved/hated this book that I hated/loved” isn't an argument—it’s just rude. Take a breath.