Genre - Nonfiction: Historical, Memoir

I had been on the waiting list for An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. My nonfiction brain needed to warm up a bit, but boy what an excellent read for me. Doris and her husband Dick make a project out of working through his boxes (and boxes and boxes) of memorabilia from his early working days. They planned to write a book about those experiences. Doris, using Dick’s own speeches and journals, crafts an intimate look at the presidential years of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. As their speech writer, Dick was in the middle of it all. For example, he was integral in Johnson’s passing of the Civil Rights Bill - written as JFK intended. Doris also captures their lives - their meeting, their love, their political differences, and the beauty of their day to day living.

This book was a challenge for me. I had to slow down my normal pace and also look up a fair amount of words (Thanks, Ereader!). Doris Kearns is a masterful writer and an expert in her field of history. She uses her knowledge and combined with her own experiences and those of her husband to provide new insight into the tumultuous political landscape of the 1960s. I am not politically and historically gifted enough to evaluate her work from this perspective. But as someone who loves to get her history through narrative nonfiction and memoir, Goodwin had me in the palm of her writing hand. I am fascinated by this period in history and am appreciative of her frontline perspective of it. As tends to happen with me, the book sent me into a flurry of googling, documentary watching, podcast listening, and book buying. I had little idea of the personalities of these historical figures and the weight of their legislation and political landscape. Kearns also, through this book, explores the relationship that she and her husband share. The unfinished part is especially poignant as she embarks on life without him - without being able to complete this project with him. The blending of history and memoir is beautifully wrought.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story spoke to me in the current moment in two ways. One, it is, for me, a comfort to know that division and difficulty has a long and storied history in these United States. Perhaps we are exposed to it more now with the 24 hour news cycle and social media, but I needed the refresher that this battle has long existed. Less positively, I worry about the “Great Society” being systematically chipped away at in our current political times. I am unsettled at the reminder of the lack of civil rights in my lifetime and the prejudice that still exists and seems to be pushing us backwards. I love a novel like that stretches me and makes me think - even one that makes me uncomfortable or empowers me to act.