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Luis Alberto Urrea and Libby Fischer Hellman, "Good Night, Irene" and "Max's War"
Luis Alberto Urrea and Libby Fischer Hellman will be in-store at The Book Cellar talking about their books! Hellman's book, Max's War: The Story of a Ritchie Boy is debuting, and Urrea's novel Good Night, Irene is releasing in paperback.
About the Authors:
Luis Alberto Urrea-
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway, now in its thirty-fourth 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.
Libby Hellman-
Libby Fischer Hellmann left a career in broadcast news in Washington, DC and moved to Chicago a long time ago, where she, naturally, began to write gritty crime fiction. She soon began writing historical fiction as well. Eighteen novels and twenty-five short stories later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first.
She has been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community and has even won a few.
She has been a finalist twice for the Anthony and the Shamus; and four times for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. She has also been nominated for the Agatha, the Daphne, and she won the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year in 2021. She has won the IPPY, Foreword Magazine’s Indie Awards, and the Readers Choice Award multiple times.
Her latest novel, Max’s War: The Story of a Ritchie Boy, is the little known story of German Jewish immigrants to the US who escaped Hitler and joined the Army to fight Nazis.
Her other novels include the six-volume Ellie Foreman series, which she describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24;” the hard-boiled 6-volume Georgia Davis PI series, and five stand-alone historical thrillers set during the Vietnam War, Revolutionary Iran, Cuba, the volatile Sixties, and WW2. Her short stories have been published in a dozen anthologies, the Saturday Evening Post, and Ed Gorman’s “25 Criminally Good Short Stories” collection. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, and Chinese. All her books are available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
In 2006 she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 4000 member organization committed to the advancement of female crime fiction authors.
About the Books:
Max's War: The Story of a Ritchie Boy-
As the Nazis sweep across Europe, Jewish teen Max and his parents flee German persecution to Holland, where Max finds friends and a life-altering romance. But when Hitler invades in 1940, Max escapes to Chicago, leaving his parents and friends behind. When he learns of his parents' murder, Max immediately enlists in the US Army. After basic training he is sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, where he is trained in interrogation and counterintelligence.
Deployed to the OSS, Max carries out dangerous missions in Occupied countries. He also interrogates German POWs, especially after D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, where, despite life-threatening conditions, he elicits critical information about German troop movements.
Post-war, he works for the Americans in the German denazification program, bringing him back to his Bavarian childhood home of Regensburg. Though the city avoided large-scale destruction, the Jewish community was decimated. Max roams familiar yet strange streets, replaying memories of lives lost to unspeakable tragedy. While there, however, he reunites with someone from his past, who, like him, sought refuge abroad. Can they rebuild their lives... together?
This epic, suspenseful coming of age and war story is Libby Hellmann's tribute to her late father-in-law who was active with the OSS and interrogated dozens of German POWs.
Good Night, Irene-
This New York Times bestselling novel tells an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman's heroic frontline service in the Red Cross.
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).
RSVP HERE!
Event Start Time:
Thursday, June 27, 2024 - 7:00pm
Paperback Fiction
Hardcover Non-Fiction
Hardcover Fiction
