"Good Night, Irene" by Luis Alberto Urrea

“Irene threw her things into the back of the truck and pressed in beside them. The Allies were beating the Germans back across the Siegfried Line. Atrocities were scattered throughout the Ardennes. But she was back with her Sisters. Heading east, following Patton and his warriors into the heart of Hitler’s empire.”

― Luis Alberto Urrea, Good Night, Irene

Good Night, Irene was inspired by Urrea's mother's experiences working as a "Donut Dolly" for the Red Cross on the front lines of World War II. The women of the Clubmobiles would serve coffee and donuts to the troops as a morale booster. This role the Red Cross played in WWII and their similar services during the Korean and Vietnam conflict were new to me. It is another instance where women were part of the war, seeing the horrors of battle and the atrocities inflicted on civilians first hand.

But this book is also a romance. Irene joins the Red Cross to escape an abusive relationship, and while in England she meets Hans, better known as Handyman. Their paths cross several times during the war, but as with most romance novels, the tension comes from the ambiguity of their feelings for the other and the fear those feelings are not reciprocated. They lose contact near the end of the war.

I can’t decide if I like historical fiction or not. It’s really hit and miss for me. Some have strong characters and stories simply set in an historical era while others try to teach us something about history. The former can be rich and rewarding in that they are world-building in a way, and if the story they tell is compelling and well-suited for the time, the historical setting can deepen the narrative in a inobtrusive way. The latter can also engage the reader as it focuses more on the specifics of place and people of that time. 

The problem for me in both is the need for historical accuracy. My brain has difficulty resetting to neutral once I encounter inaccuracies and anachronisms. Granted I'm not an expert on any specific time in history, but I like to think I have a good general background in history and want to continue to learn. After the gut reaction to something I think it out of place for the time being written about, I like to do a little research to see if I'm right. If the author correctly used an item, turn of phrase, or custom that I thought was out of time, then I mark it down to a teaching moment, but if, on the other hand, the author allows the present to intrude into the past, then my teacher-brain clicks on and it is difficult to turn it off. Unlike reading science fiction or speculative fiction, where suspension of disbelief allows us to accept fantastical worlds, I expect the writer of historical fiction to build worlds true to our own. I know I should let go and not let small, trivial anachronisms get in the way of my enjoyment, but when I encounter the little inaccuracies I lose confidence in the entire historical framework. 

My first thoughts about Irene were that I didn’t appreciate a male author writing about women’s lives to the point that he was trying to have their voice. I understand that he is channeling his mother's voice through the stories of  her experiences in World War II, but that didn’t make me feel any better about a man writing about women. I also thought that the author was, at least at the beginning of the book, trying to use all the slang he could for the time period. I didn’t think that his depiction of the women and how they would talk to each other was realistic. I would like to know how much of the dialogue and the situations were taken what his mother what she said or wrote. It would have been fascinating to have my mother read this book and give me her take on living through the war. On the other hand, I did feel like I learned a lot about the war that I hadn’t known before despite what I thought were weak character depictions. For instance, the air raid and bombing of a moving train was not something I had read about in other books, fact, or fiction, about World War II.

This book is a departure from Urrea's other work. Someone might be interested in his novels if they are interested in near contemporary writing about immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. Generally, his stories are drawn from history, culture, or myth. His writing is journalistic, and even in his novels it is as if he is reporting the story rather than trying to draw the reader into the experiences of the characters. 

It wasn't until I was reading up on Urrea that I came to realize one of the aspects of his writing that was off-putting for me. The basis for the story in Good Night, Irene is different than his other novels, but it shares his journalistic style. The reporting of what happens in Irene and her fellow Red Cross volunteers makes it difficult to connect with them. The reader is observing the women, distant, instead of having that intimate relationship that is needed to understand what they are going through. His journalistic style in Irene made me uncomfortable and compounded the feeling that he had no basis on which to write about women's lives from the inside, and so wrote from the outside. 

I have a copy of Urrea's Devil's Highway and have hesitated to start it. The setting and story are interesting to me, but I am that comfortable with his style. I have also read that he generally focuses on men's lives and masculinity, which also dampens my interest.