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Chappaquiddick  By  cover art

Chappaquiddick

By: Leo Damore,Howie Carr - foreword
Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
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Publisher's summary

A young woman leaves a party with a wealthy US senator. The next morning her body is discovered in his car at the bottom of a pond.

This is the damning true story of the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and of the senator - a 37-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy - who left her trapped underwater while he returned to his hotel, slept, and made phone calls to associates. It is the story of a powerful, privileged American man who was able to treat a woman's life as disposable without facing real consequences. And it is the story of a shameful political cover-up involving one of the nation's most well-connected families and its network of lawyers, public relations people, and friends who ensured Ted Kennedy remained a respected member of the Senate for 40 more years.

Leo Damore's 1988 national best seller, originally entitled Senatorial Privilege, almost didn't make it into print after its original publisher, Random House, judged it too explosive and backed out of its contract with Damore. Mysteriously, none of the other big New York publishers picked it up. Only when small independent publisher Regnery obtained the manuscript was the book's publication made possible and the true story of the so-called "Chappaquiddick incident" finally told. This new edition, Chappaquiddick, is being released 30 years after the original Senatorial Privilege to coincide with the nationwide theatrical release of the movie Chappaquiddick starring Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, and Jim Gaffigan.

©2018 Leo Damore (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

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What listeners say about Chappaquiddick

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    5 out of 5 stars

Liberals too can rig the system

Narration: rendered with appropriate seriousness and pacing facilitates thoughtful reflection.

Content: well documented instance of legerdemain in pusillanimous service of coward in liberal clothing. Republicans do not have a corner on dirty dealings.

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13 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

a Real Headache!

Like sitting in a room full of Lawyers, with all speaking at once. Too much dialogue, not enough story.
It amounts to one long argument and nobody is telling the truth, trying to save the reputation of a man who is not well liked, only feared!
Gave me a headache, as if Chappaquitic were Wonderland, and I was Alice!!!

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10 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

20 chapters to discribe 5 minutes of details

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

no onw I know I wouldn't wish this mess on anybody

Has Chappaquiddick turned you off from other books in this genre?

yes never again soo long and boring

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Peter Berkrot?

n/a

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Chappaquiddick?

all of it who cares what tie kennady wore

Any additional comments?

i'll save you 16 hours Ted Kennedy did it

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8 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent, and inquisitive- narration could be better.

This book, on the incident at Chappaquiddick, was one of the better political reads I’ve undertaken in the past few years. Having been extremely interested in the Kennedy family as of late I decided to delve into this book about one of the Kennedys that I knew least about. I was pleased with this choice, an excellent book consisting of almost entire primary sources/direct quotations on the incident and the years following. While the author did an amazing job turning the information at hand into a phenomenal story, the narrator was the only thing preventing a higher score for me. His general narrative voice almost sounded sinister, as if he was trying to make a bad guy/villainous voice, though to his credit he did an excellent job at helping the reader allow different characters to come in and out of play with ease when he changed his tones on those characters (be it Ted Kennedy all the way to Reagan). Overall, this book is highly recommended as not only a companion to the recently released movie of the same title but as one that many Americans should read- to understand the power of political and financial influence, in a story that most Americans don’t know today.

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7 people found this helpful

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Boring!

Just the facts. No life to this book; it was like reading a long newspaper article.

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6 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Nothing new here

How this young ladie's death is never avenged has become one of the ultimate failures of justice. Leo Danmore was a very brave man against an army of unwarranted defenders. How he kept his project intact is a study in morality. So many folks suffer in out institutions for far less crimes.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Chappaqiddick

I give this book 5 stars. It tells the story of cowardice and corruption that cruelly took the life of a fine young woman.

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5 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Tedious listen

Tediously written and the narrator mispronounced words. This could have been a better book with more historical context.

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Too long!!!

Too long. Could’ve told story in less words. Hated narrator. Boring! He should’ve been in jail.

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4 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Traffic accident not enough plot for a full book

I'm sorry that a woman died in this accident. That is a tragedy. However this book is just a tedious 15 hour discussion of a traffic accident. If it happened to you or me there would be no book. The fact that it happened to a Kennedy is the only thing that elevates this to being a subject matter that anyone would write about. But it's still just a traffic accident. Listening to small town officials discuss this traffic accident for 15 hours is just a bit absurd. There's no plot. There's no story. There are just rural officials discussing legal statutes about what happens when you leave the scene of an accident. If this were a jury trial it would be the most boring trial in history. I got that the author is trying to engage in good journalism and not tell a salacious story. That's admirable. But there's just not enough material here to make an interesting book. That's my opinion. Others have really liked it. For me it was dull.

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3 people found this helpful