“Well, I didn’t want to hear anything about a merciful God. No words, no prayer, no sermon gave me ease. I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry.” That was Joe Biden following the 1972 car crash that killed his first wife and his 13 month-old daughter. One of the survivors of that car crash, Beau Biden, died of cancer over the weekend. Evan Osnos on We Bidens, An American Family.

+ WaPo’s Paul Kane: Family losses frame Vice President Biden’s career.