A very happy natal day to Sarah’s dad, Dave Sr., who plans to celebrate by…not being the Zodiac. We’re going to celebrate by throwing open a thread to talk about another case that occurred on or around 7/17: the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

I haven’t read/consumed widely on Chappaquiddick — the fact is, there isn’t much to it, as a “case,” and even the reasons Ted Kennedy didn’t do a day following Kopechne’s death aren’t exactly a mystery — but I did read Joyce Carol Oates’s Black Water and find it very affecting (her frozen prose isn’t always for me but it was just the thing this time). And there’s something about it, for me…something about how we’ll never really know what happened. How Kennedy himself, even if he were inclined to confess, probably didn’t really remember.

Is Chappaquiddick the Kennedy crime you care about the most — or the least? Have any of you seen the 2017 movie, and should I bother? Any good general reading to recommend on Ted’s life? (I loved the McGinniss but also understand that as a piece of “journalism” it’s a catastrophe.) — SDB