Book-It '10! Book #22
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen
Details: Copyright 2009, Twelve Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave 'a lasting impression on the world.' Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-- irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting 'another Columbine.'
When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window-- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenager killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to the prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal.
The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who were secretly stockpiling a basement cache of weapons, recording their raging hatred, and manipulating every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boys' tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.
In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, COLUMBINE is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of violence, a community rendered helpless, and police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers-- an unforgettable cautionary tale for our time."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Like most people of my generation, I was affected by the Columbine massacre, which occurred during my sophomore year of high school. It remains a marking point for a generation and this book comes highly recommended by most news outlets.
How I Liked It: I remember the first Disinformation book I read which postulates, among other things, the existence of a third shooter at Columbine along with noting the vast amount of police cover-ups. The chapter concludes that hopefully someday a book will be written on Columbine once the information is all finally put out into the open. This can easily be that book.
While most revelatory books are generally considered to be the first in a wave (meaning other authors take the hard-won information gleaned from the first to form a more cohesive understanding of the facts), this book absolutely stands alone. Cullen is meticulous, both in his documentation and his framework. It wouldn't be overblown to call this a masterpiece of true crime literature.
Cullen not only presents the facts (just a few of Cullen's sources: detailed eye-witness testimony from survivors and their families (one of which includes FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, who went on to use the shooters as a case study in psychopathy and whose son survived the attack), the journals of Wayne Harris, father of one of the shooters as well as the shooters themselves, material from Eric Harris's website, the "Basement Tapes": a series of videos created by the shooters describing their motives, showing off their equipment, and generally documenting their preparation) but places them into a narrative that's neither heavy-handed nor didactic. Cullen's motive is simply depicting the true story of Columbine and as such it's utterly fascinating and engaging. The book is separated into five sections in a sort of timeline of the attack and its aftermath pared against the events leading up to it. He gives fascinating insight into the mass media shaping various narratives and myths (goths, the Occult, bullying) as well as the coping mechanisms of the survivors: not just the families of what he calls "The Thirteen" or those that escaped, generally injured for life (in particular, he recounts the story of Patrick Ireland, "The Boy in the Window", who suffered severe brain damage and a self-made miraculous recovery; Patrick shares a dedication along with the victims in the beginning of the book "for giving [the author] hope" (pg v)), but of those to whom the story of their small high school made world renown (and becoming synonymous as a national tragedy).
I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Columbine, true crime study, psychology, psychopathy, or the role of the media in our age.
Notable: This book was published in 2009 so it's nearly mandatory that it contain some mention of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. I was especially curious to see how this would fit into a role of the analysis of Columbine.
Cullen handles it with the skill he demonstrated throughout the rest of the book. In the final chapter, he summarizes the lives of the survivors after the tragedy and includes a section on how American society has changed post-Columbine. He takes the reader through the history of school violence in the wake of Columbine.
"School shooters faded as a national fear for a while. They worsened in Europe. They returned to the States in an uglier form in the fall of 2006, when a spate of adult killers realized that a school setting would reap attention. There were four shootings in a three-week span, beginning in late August 2006. The shooters used various tactics to resemble the Columbine killers, including trench coats and Web sites mentioning them by name. They appeared to see Eric and Dylan's legacy as a marketing opportunity." (pg 347)
He mentions the infamous shooting of five girls in an Amish school house, noting that it garnered national attention, but that the Platte Canyon shooting hit Denver even harder, as Platte Canyon high school was just one county over with a police force so small that the sheriff of Jefferson County (where Columbine high school resides) commanded the response team. The tragedy filled the Rocky Mountain News, the same local paper to cover the Columbine massacre, with "photos eerily like April 20 [1999]: survivors sobbing, praying, holding on tight." (pg 347)
Bomb scares spiked at Columbine and the school was evacuated a few days later. The community clenched in fear again, but it was only a prank.
Cullen notes that Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis (noted extensively throughout the book) made himself available for support to every school principle who survived the more than eighty school shootings that took place in the United States in the ten years after the Columbine shootings. In the fall of 2006, DeAngelis received an e-mail from a nineteen-year-old that stated about a future North Carolina school shooting that he would be responsible for, claiming
"I remember Columbine. It is time the world remembered it. I am sorry. Goodbye." (pg 348)
DeAngelis contacted police immediately, but it was too late. The boy had driven past his high school firing eight shots, wounding two superficially. When police raided his home, they found his father dead. When taken into court, he was asked why he was obsessed with Columbine and answered that he didn't know.
Cullen observes that "School shooters were starting to feel like a threat again." (pg 348)
He ends the chapter with Virginia Tech and a standard criticism of the media (of which he acknowledges in the introduction he is a part of but refers to in the third person to avoid injecting himself into the story; he also acknowledges that he was among the guilty parties in getting the central factors wrong and states a hope that this book will contribute to setting the record straight):
"The press proclaimed it a new American record. They shuddered at the idea of turning school shootings into a competition, then awarded [shooter Seung-Hui] Cho the title." (pg 348)
Finally, he dismisses the myth that Cho was another Klebold or Harris:
"Cho left a manifesto explaining his attack. It cited Eric and Dylan at least twice as inspiration. He'd looked up to them. He did not resemble them. Cho did not appear to enjoy his rampage. He did not expect to. He emptied his guns with a blank expression. He shared none of Eric's or Dylan's bloodlust. The videos that Cho left described himself as raped, crucified, impaled, and slashed ear to ear. Cho appears to have been severely mentally ill, fighting a powerful psychosis, possibly schizophrenia. Unlike the Columbine killers, he did not seem to be in touch with reality or comprehend what he was doing. He understood only that Eric and Dylan left an impression." (pg 348)
Another needed astute insight into a senseless American tragedy.
Title: COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen
Details: Copyright 2009, Twelve Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave 'a lasting impression on the world.' Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-- irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting 'another Columbine.'
When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window-- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenager killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to the prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal.
The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who were secretly stockpiling a basement cache of weapons, recording their raging hatred, and manipulating every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boys' tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.
In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, COLUMBINE is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of violence, a community rendered helpless, and police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers-- an unforgettable cautionary tale for our time."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Like most people of my generation, I was affected by the Columbine massacre, which occurred during my sophomore year of high school. It remains a marking point for a generation and this book comes highly recommended by most news outlets.
How I Liked It: I remember the first Disinformation book I read which postulates, among other things, the existence of a third shooter at Columbine along with noting the vast amount of police cover-ups. The chapter concludes that hopefully someday a book will be written on Columbine once the information is all finally put out into the open. This can easily be that book.
While most revelatory books are generally considered to be the first in a wave (meaning other authors take the hard-won information gleaned from the first to form a more cohesive understanding of the facts), this book absolutely stands alone. Cullen is meticulous, both in his documentation and his framework. It wouldn't be overblown to call this a masterpiece of true crime literature.
Cullen not only presents the facts (just a few of Cullen's sources: detailed eye-witness testimony from survivors and their families (one of which includes FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, who went on to use the shooters as a case study in psychopathy and whose son survived the attack), the journals of Wayne Harris, father of one of the shooters as well as the shooters themselves, material from Eric Harris's website, the "Basement Tapes": a series of videos created by the shooters describing their motives, showing off their equipment, and generally documenting their preparation) but places them into a narrative that's neither heavy-handed nor didactic. Cullen's motive is simply depicting the true story of Columbine and as such it's utterly fascinating and engaging. The book is separated into five sections in a sort of timeline of the attack and its aftermath pared against the events leading up to it. He gives fascinating insight into the mass media shaping various narratives and myths (goths, the Occult, bullying) as well as the coping mechanisms of the survivors: not just the families of what he calls "The Thirteen" or those that escaped, generally injured for life (in particular, he recounts the story of Patrick Ireland, "The Boy in the Window", who suffered severe brain damage and a self-made miraculous recovery; Patrick shares a dedication along with the victims in the beginning of the book "for giving [the author] hope" (pg v)), but of those to whom the story of their small high school made world renown (and becoming synonymous as a national tragedy).
I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Columbine, true crime study, psychology, psychopathy, or the role of the media in our age.
Notable: This book was published in 2009 so it's nearly mandatory that it contain some mention of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. I was especially curious to see how this would fit into a role of the analysis of Columbine.
Cullen handles it with the skill he demonstrated throughout the rest of the book. In the final chapter, he summarizes the lives of the survivors after the tragedy and includes a section on how American society has changed post-Columbine. He takes the reader through the history of school violence in the wake of Columbine.
"School shooters faded as a national fear for a while. They worsened in Europe. They returned to the States in an uglier form in the fall of 2006, when a spate of adult killers realized that a school setting would reap attention. There were four shootings in a three-week span, beginning in late August 2006. The shooters used various tactics to resemble the Columbine killers, including trench coats and Web sites mentioning them by name. They appeared to see Eric and Dylan's legacy as a marketing opportunity." (pg 347)
He mentions the infamous shooting of five girls in an Amish school house, noting that it garnered national attention, but that the Platte Canyon shooting hit Denver even harder, as Platte Canyon high school was just one county over with a police force so small that the sheriff of Jefferson County (where Columbine high school resides) commanded the response team. The tragedy filled the Rocky Mountain News, the same local paper to cover the Columbine massacre, with "photos eerily like April 20 [1999]: survivors sobbing, praying, holding on tight." (pg 347)
Bomb scares spiked at Columbine and the school was evacuated a few days later. The community clenched in fear again, but it was only a prank.
Cullen notes that Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis (noted extensively throughout the book) made himself available for support to every school principle who survived the more than eighty school shootings that took place in the United States in the ten years after the Columbine shootings. In the fall of 2006, DeAngelis received an e-mail from a nineteen-year-old that stated about a future North Carolina school shooting that he would be responsible for, claiming
"I remember Columbine. It is time the world remembered it. I am sorry. Goodbye." (pg 348)
DeAngelis contacted police immediately, but it was too late. The boy had driven past his high school firing eight shots, wounding two superficially. When police raided his home, they found his father dead. When taken into court, he was asked why he was obsessed with Columbine and answered that he didn't know.
Cullen observes that "School shooters were starting to feel like a threat again." (pg 348)
He ends the chapter with Virginia Tech and a standard criticism of the media (of which he acknowledges in the introduction he is a part of but refers to in the third person to avoid injecting himself into the story; he also acknowledges that he was among the guilty parties in getting the central factors wrong and states a hope that this book will contribute to setting the record straight):
"The press proclaimed it a new American record. They shuddered at the idea of turning school shootings into a competition, then awarded [shooter Seung-Hui] Cho the title." (pg 348)
Finally, he dismisses the myth that Cho was another Klebold or Harris:
"Cho left a manifesto explaining his attack. It cited Eric and Dylan at least twice as inspiration. He'd looked up to them. He did not resemble them. Cho did not appear to enjoy his rampage. He did not expect to. He emptied his guns with a blank expression. He shared none of Eric's or Dylan's bloodlust. The videos that Cho left described himself as raped, crucified, impaled, and slashed ear to ear. Cho appears to have been severely mentally ill, fighting a powerful psychosis, possibly schizophrenia. Unlike the Columbine killers, he did not seem to be in touch with reality or comprehend what he was doing. He understood only that Eric and Dylan left an impression." (pg 348)
Another needed astute insight into a senseless American tragedy.