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The San Antonio Book Festival, in partnership with Alamo Colleges District and Texas Public Radio, proudly presents LUIS ALBERTO URREA with his latest novel, GOOD NIGHT, IRENE, in conversation with YVETTE BENAVIDES at the Malú and Carlos Alvarez Theater and Studio. Author signing to follow with book sales provided by Nowhere Bookshop. This event is free and open to the public. No registration required.
Event Details
- 7PM Presentation
- 8PM Book sales and signing
- FREE parking at City Tower garage (60 N. Flores) with validation
“Every once in a while the universe opens its heart and pulls out a book like this novel, gifting it to the cosmos. In Good Night, Irene, a new element has been created, and the literary world is reborn in the image of Luis Alberto Urrea. His voice comes alive on every page of this magnificent novel.”
—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
ABOUT THE BOOK
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).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & MODERATOR
Hailed by NPR as a “literary badass” and a “master storyteller with a rock and roll heart,” Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway, now in its thirty-fourth 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.
Yvette Benavides is a professor of English and creative writing at Our Lady of the Lake University. She hosts the Texas Public Radio podcasts “Book Public” and “The Lonely Voice with Peter Orner.” She is an editor-at-large with Trinity University Press. She co-authored the book San Antonio 365: On This Day in History with David Martin Davies. She is proud to be a founding member of the advisory board of the San Antonio Book Festival.
