Two dates burn fiercely in the memory of millions of Americans: November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001. These two tragedies bracket Unafraid, a story grounded in a simple question: What if the fatal bullet fired on that sunny Dallas afternoon had veered three inches off target? Unafraid lays out a compelling answer, rich with the public adventures and private dramas of twentieth-century icons—from J. Edgar Hoover to the Beatles—played out on a transformed world stage. At the center of this parallel history is a leader who blows the sides out of conventional politics with the simple belief that the primary reason idealistic goals are “impossible” to achieve is that we have needlessly decided that they are. With a tiny imaginary spin of history’s wheel, Unafraid opens the gates to an America of realistic hope and possibility.
Jeff Golden’s migration from the halls of Harvard to the backwoods of Oregon was chronicled in the book Watermelon Summer. He has built homes, farmed, logged, guided river adventures, and served as a county commissioner, mediator, columnist, and public broadcasting producer and talk show host. He was Oregon’s first nominee for the JFK Profile in Courage Award.
Malcolm Hillgartner is an accomplished actor, writer, and musician. Named an AudioFile Best Voice of 2013 and the recipient of several Earphones Awards, he has narrated over 250 audiobooks.