4 stars.

This was a fascinating read. Doris Kearns Goodwin and especially her husband Richard "Dick" Goodwin not only had center seats at many of the pivotal/seminal moments of the 1960's, they often had lead supporting and even starring roles at many points. Thus we get a book that's both from a historian's and an insider's perspective, but even more, from people who are simultaneously objective, looking at events in hindsight, but also intricately, passionately involved in how the 1960s unrolled and about the aftereffects of everything that happened.

My one big carp with this book is that it feels like we hear about EVERY-SINGLE-TIME Dick Goodwin smokes a cigar! (Having said that, it's mildly amusing hearing about him trying to teach chain-smoker Jackie Kennedy how to smoke a cigar.) But otherwise, this book embodies a very interesting kind of historical work and we are all the richer for it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

I have always enjoyed reading Doris Kearns Goodwin. But this book is something truly special. She manages to weave together a history lesson, a biography, as well as the love story between two amazing people.
"An Unfinished Love Story" begins with the incredible career of Richard Goodwin, a writer and presidential advisor. It's a story of being involved in the politics of the 60's. You immediately become part of Richard's path through the politics off the day. And you learn so much about his political and personal thoughts. And during all this you get to know so much more about JFK, LBJ, RFK and others; what they were like as human beings, not just political folk.
The story unfolds as Doris and Richard go through almost 300 boxes of Richard's works, as he enters the last part of his life.
This is a book you must not miss!

AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin is indeed "A Personal History of the 1960s," and it is a truly fascinating one. I had no idea that her husband was Dick Goodwin, an advisor and speechwriter for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The soaring rhetoric of those times is surely missed today, and Kearns Goodwin does an excellent job of recounting events from an insider perspective (she herself later was an aide and biographer for President Johnson), complete with numerous excerpts and commentary from other public service contemporaries. In addition to sharing insights about the Kennedy administration, Kearns Goodwin documents the shock coupled with necessary planning and preparations after his assassination. She discusses international policy as well as the development of domestic programs like Johnson's Great Society. Here, for example, is a short excerpt from the Voting Rights speech which Dick Goodwin wrote and Johnson delivered in an unusual address to both houses of Congress:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbFmicUTb_k

AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY is highly recommended; for a sense of Kearns Goodwin’s intimate writing style, turn to this short essay about LBJ’s decision to not run in 1968, taken from the book and recently published in The Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/howlbjsaved-his-legacy-by-refusing-to-run-again-be2d06bf

Excellent. Loved the background minutiae of an important part of US history. The book brought back many memories with added clarity and insight. Important figures of the times were brought to life once again.

I always enjoy Doris Kearns Goodwin's books and this was no different. This was in interesting and personal look at how the leadership of the 1960s impacted this couple. What a fascinating look at history these two had! I've never really understood Goodwin's love for LBJ, but I suppose this helps better show the love of the man and not just his policies. All in all, I would say this is another great addition to the Goodwin collection.

I took three pages of notes while reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s. Why? I’m not writing a book report, and this is the only review I’m writing. But, the story of the 1960s, as seen by Dick and Doris Kearns Goodwin is fascinating, and I just felt as if I needed the notes.

The historians were married for forty-two years. But, their experiences in their twenties and thirties, before they even met, set the map for the rest of their lives. To tell the story of their careers, particularly Dick’s, the couple opened three hundred boxes of letters, documents, and memorabilia. Dick was in his eighties, and Doris in her mid-seventies when they started their project.

Dick Goodwin was one of the “brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier”. He was one of Kennedy’s primary speechwriters. Kennedy was his idol. In his thirties, Dick wrote about and helped design LBJ’s Great Society. He was always idealistic, and wanted the best for the country. When he wanted to move on with his life, he had to fight to leave LBJ’s White House. Dick’s speeches helped Eugene McCarthy, and Robert Kennedy. While he idolized JFK, Dick was closer to RFK. He loved him, and saw him as the future of the country. In Dick’s memories are stories of these men, along with their interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, the important movers of the 1960s.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memories of her time with LBJ starts just before she was selected as a White House Fellow, despite the article in The New Republic, “How to Remove LBJ in 1968”. She was in her twenties, idealistic as well, and went to work at the Department of Labor, advocating for Johnson’s Great Society programs, and helping them to move ahead. Eventually, she was transferred to the White House where she often worked directly with the President. Although she turned him down when he was retiring and wanted her to help write his memoirs, she eventually found a way to work part-time for him, while teaching at Harvard.

Goodwin’s book is the story of the tumultuous 1960s, and the tragedies of 1968. But, it’s also the story of two people who loved each other, but were conflicted for years over their opinions of the men they worked for. While Dick’s loyalties were with the Kennedys, Doris appreciated and loved Johnson. As they worked on this project together, though, she acknowledged that their debates over the years were about the “respective investments of our youth, questions of loyalty and love”.

In the end, there was no question about the loyalty and love the Goodwins had for each other.

If you’re fascinated by the 1960s, and what happened in those years, you’ll want to pick up this book, told from the viewpoints of two people who were in the midst of the history, in “The Room Where it Happens”. An Unfinished Love Story is a memoir and history.

A wonderful memoir by historian Doris Kearn Goodwin about her long term and loving marriage to Dick Goodwin and the sharing of his vast cache of archival materials about history and its famed persons in the 60’s. All of it delight to read and absorb.