It is 1943 in New York City. Irene Woodward is 23 years old and engaged to a man from a prominent society family. Knowing she needs to escape her suffocating mother and her abusive fiancé, Irene secretly signs up to join the American Red Cross Clubmobile Service. She travels to Washington, D.C., to train for what will become a strenuous and often dangerous job of following the British and United States troops.            

After training, Irene travels in a convoy of ships across the Atlantic Ocean to join other volunteers driving clubmobiles—2.5-ton trucks and busses repurposed as mobile social clubs— to wherever the armed forces are stationed. These “Donut Dollies” make coffee and doughnuts, play music, and try to provide some relief from the tension of the war for the men, oftentimes the night before fighter planes and bombers take off for Europe. 

The women establish strong bonds with each other, especially Irene and Dorothy Dunford, her partner in the Clubmobile Service. They experience love and loss, but come to know how important their jobs are to these soldiers who are risking their lives for the war effort. As they follow the troops into Europe, Irene and Dorothy are often faced with danger; there are scattered groups of German soldiers battling to take back territory.

Luis Alberto Urrea based his historical novel on his mother’s experience as a Donut Dolly during World War II. To research the book, Urrea read journals and interviewed several Clubmobile women. Photographs in the book are from those his mother kept.

Many of UMRA’s Book Club I members felt that the book started off slowly, but gained momentum as the clubmobiles traveled into Europe and dangerous situations arose. The general consensus of the group was that they liked the book, but some felt it wasn’t an accurate picture of women in the war. The information about the “Donut Dollies” was new to most book club members. The majority of the members felt the friendship between Irene and Dorothy was the strong point of the book. 

—Stephanie Daily, UMRA Book Club I