Columbine by Dave Cullen
by Jenners • 07/19/2010 • 5 Stars, C Authors, C Titles, Non-Fiction • 24 Comments
Dave Cullen
Twelve, 2009
ISBN: 978-0446546928
464 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction, True Crime
My Rating: 5 stars
As Sandy at You’ve Gotta Read This remarked in her outstanding review of this book,
There are a handful of events in our lives that we use to mark time. When JFK was shot, when Lennon was shot, 9/11…and Columbine. We will forever remember where we were and what we were doing the moment we heard the news.”
When I heard about the events at Columbine, I was out-of-town at a work meeting. I clearly remember one of my co-workers rushing up to me saying “There’s been this horrible shooting at a high school in Colorado. It’s all over the news!” Later that night of April 20, 1999, we all huddled around the TV watching the footage and proclaiming our disbelief over and over again. In the end, 13 people were killed and dozens were seriously injured. Countless others bore psychological scarring that affects their lives to this day. And the killers? Well, they shot themselves in the school library–the scene of the greatest carnage–leaving the rest of the world to piece together the reasons for why they did what they did.
Of course, school shootings happened before Columbine and they happened after Columbine, but Columbine seems to stand out as THE school shooting because of the sheer amount of news coverage that it garnered and the myths that grew up around it. For most school shootings, the event was over and done before any news cameras showed up–leaving us with only the tearful survivors to tell us what happened. With Columbine, the media coverage was immediate and ongoing. We saw the students fleeing the school. We witnessed the dead bodies laying outside of the school entrance. We bit our nails anxiously as Patrick Ireland dangled from the library window.
The reason Columbine was different was because we–the viewing public–became personal witnesses as the tragedy unfolded in real-time. As the Columbine story gathered steam in the passing weeks, a variety of myths grew up around the shooting. “The gunmen were bullied by jocks and were targeting jocks to get revenge.” “The gunmen were influenced by the music of Marilyn Manson.” “A group called the Trench Coat Mafia orchestrated the event.” Other myths would take longer to develop but would prove just as durable, particularly the story of Cassie Bernall, who was allegedly shot in the library for acknowledging her belief in God to the gunmen.
Eventually and inevitably, the news media moved on to other stories, and we were left with few definitive answers. In the 10 years following the Columbine shooting, Dave Cullen sifted through a mountain of information–conducting hundreds of interviews, reading thousands of pages of police files, consulting with FBI psychologists, and viewing the tapes and diaries left behind by Harris and Klebold–in order to write a definitive account of what happened that day at Columbine–including what led up to the shooting, what went wrong during the initial response, and the aftermath of the shooting in the community and those permanently scarred either by the loss of loved ones or injury. He also attempts to answer one of the biggest questions that lingers over the specter of the Columbine shooting: Why?
Cullen meticulously documents his sources for each section of the book. When I read the book on my Kindle, the text stopped at 80%. The remaining 20% contained Cullen’s documentation of where he got his information for each assertion made in his book. With this type of rigid reporting and documentation, I felt confident when I was reading Columbine that I was reading an account that was as accurate and true as it could possibly be.
Yet although the book is meticulously researched, it reads like a novel. The writing is clear and precise but gripping. As you read, you’re drawn in to the story. When Harris and Klebold are roaming the hallways in the aftermath of the first wave of shooting, you feel like you are walking alongside them. When frightened parents gather in the first hours after the shooting–frantically trying to locate their children–you feel their anxiety and stress. The book was emotionally powerful and affecting. When reading it, I dreamt more than once of being in the school with Harris and Klebold coming down the hallway. It was an uncomfortable read, and one that continues to haunt me. Unlike murder mysteries where you know the twisted psyche of a killer is simply the product of the darker corners of an author’s imagination, Columbine tells a true story. The events of Columbine happened not so long ago in a place that is probably quite similar to where you live. Columbine haunts us because it reminds us that something like this could happen in our community, to our sons and daughters, in our schools.
Cullen moves back and forth in time throughout the book–describing the myriad of information left behind by Harris and Klebold. As Cullen develops their story, it starts to become clear why Harris and Klebold did what they did. These were not boys who impulsively decided to shoot up their school one day. The Columbine shooting was a meticulously planned campaign of death and destruction that was painstakingly planned and documented by Harris. It turns out that Eric Harris was the mastermind and impetus behind the entire event; Klebold was a reluctant participant who only fully committed himself at the final hour. Harris fully intended to explain what he had in mind and why he did it–leaving behind a huge assortment of material for his audience after the fact.
When reading Columbine, one of the biggest shocks to me was that Harris never intended Columbine to be a school shooting. In fact, Columbine was really a bombing that went south. If things had gone according to plan, Columbine would have resulted in hundreds dead and the total destruction of the school. When I read the scope of his plans and just how much worse Columbine could have been, my jaw dropped to the floor.
Although this isn’t an easy book to read, I think that anyone who followed the Columbine story at any level should read this book to finally get an accurate accounting of the whos, whats, whys, wheres and hows of what happened at Columbine High School on that day in April. If you still think that Harris and Klebold were victims of bullying by jocks or that rock music somehow played a part in this tragedy, if you blame the shooting on the parents of Harris and Klebold for raising bad kids, if you wonder what happened in the community of Littleton in the years after the shooting when the cameras went away, you owe it to yourself and the victims of this tragedy to read this book.
What are other book bloggers saying about this book? Find out at the Book Blogs Search Engine.
The Whys and Wheres:I bought this book for my Kindle because it seemed like a well-researched account of what happened at Columbine and I wanted to find out the true story for myself. I was not disappointed in the least.
Oh I almost forgot you were posting this! I was posting another particularly hard review today that made me think of Columbine and then your review. I popped right over. Well written and reminded me how totally powerful this read was. I like how you mention that Columbine is different because we are all personal witnesses. I hadn't thought of it that way before but you are so right.
Wow, great review and fitting for such a well-researched and thought-provoking read such as this. This book really blew my mind and made me realize how easy the story was to get wrong by the media and how quickly it all passed us by. The truth is that something like this could happen tomorrow. I checked out the author's website and he has some great material up there. Hopefully all of us and especially educators will take the time to read this cautionary (and unfortunately true) tale.
Cullen , who first reported on the story for the online magazine Salon, acknowledges in the book's source notes that thoughts he attributes to Klebold and Harris are conjecture gleaned from the record the pair left behind.
Jeff Kass takes a more straightforward approach in "Columbine: A True Crime Story," working backward from the events of the fateful day.
The Denver Post
Mr. Cullen insists that the killers enjoyed "far more friends than the average adolescent," with Harris in particular being a regular Casanova who "on the ultimate high school scorecard . . . outscored much of the football team." The author's footnotes do not reveal how he knows this; when I asked him about it while preparing this review, Mr. Cullen said he did not necessarily mean to imply that Harris was sexually active. But what else would such words mean?
"Eric and Dylan never had any girlfriends," the more sober Mr. Kass writes, and were "probably virgins upon death."
Wall Street Journal
Ooooh fantastic review! I haven't heard of this book before, but now I really want to get it!
OMG Jenners! What an awesome comment from the author!!! And kudos to you for such a sensitive yet encouraging review (and i mean encouraging in the manner that we should read it!). I know its been on my list to get to for quite some time but I keep putting other books and reviews ahead of it. With school about to begin (and my son starting 9th grade and daughter 11th) I feel like I definitely need to read it. Thank you for your review. I'm ordering it for my Kindle now.
Oh how I loved this book. Really. I listened to it on audio last year and still haven't forgotten it and I still constantly recommend it. Glad to see I wasn't the only one!
This is probably too much reality for me right now!
My tummy is better, but not perfect. I'm wearing sea bands as I type.
Wow, Jenners, you really captured the essence of my book. Thanks so much for that wonderful review, and the kind words.
I can't tell you what a difference it makes to see someone put such time and effort into my book.
Word of mouth is so important with books, so I really appreciate blogs like yours getting the word out–especially to moms, teachers and students, who seem to be really connecting with the book.
And thanks to all great comments. (It's also gratifying to see such an active blog devoted to books. I'm just happy to see people excited about books.)
Sandy, I'm sorry I missed your review while I was moving to NYC. (I just got here 9 days ago. Loving it, but man, I've had my hands full.)
For those on the fence about reading, you might check out the book trailer at my Columbine site. It captures it pretty well in 3 minutes, and I think will help you evaluate whether it's right for you.
If you know any students hungry for a good book, I recently created a Students Page, several videos and a Discussion Board. For schools and book clubs, I'm going to offer to skype in for 20-30 minutes this fall/summer.
Thanks.
I know that it is important to read a book like this. I just don't know if I'm ready to do it yet.
Great review Jenners.
I've got to read this. Sandy's review was so great and it's been on my radar ever since, but your's pushed me over the edge.
sounds facinating.
I feel like I should read this, because I currently live about 45 miles from Columbine (but lived in another state when it happened).
On the other hand, my older son is starting HS in a few weeks, so I'm afraid I might keep thinking "this could happen at his school, too!"
What a wonderful review. I am so glad that guns are illegal here in Australia. The result is that we don't have school shootings.
i'm not sure i could stomach this one. i work in a small private high school and it might be just too much for me to read about the senseless tragedy of columbine. i don't think people should forget, i just know i can't read about it. that said, your review was really well written and almost made me change my stance on reading this book.
such a heartbreaking assault on
history and those young students.
great review! another book i will
read.
Many have raved about this book, but for some reason it has never made my wish list. You make me re-question that decision..LOL
I too think this would be a great book to read but cannot bring myself to read it. I'd even attended a workshop on what to do if your school has this happen to them, but it's one of those things that you think you should know but don't really want to. Great review.
Thanks for reminding me how much I LOVED this book.
I know this is a well written and researched book and that I probably should read it, but I'm not sure I can. It just seems to hit a little too close to home for me since my son was a student at Virginia Tech when the shooting occurred there. Your review is fantastic.
Thanks for the shout out Jenners! This was SUCH a hard book to review. It definitlely took more than one sitting and more than a glass of wine to write it. You have done an excellent job! I found my jaw on the floor for most of the reading. I was shocked at all the inaccuracies reported by the media. Cassie's "martyrdom", the Trenchcoat Mafia, the bullying. The cover-up by the police! Crazy. Blew my mind, all of it. This will be one of my favorite reads of the year.
I read and attempted to review this book when it was first released. You and Sandy, however, did a much better job at detailing the powerful impact this non-fiction novel delivers to the reader.
Excellent review!!
I keep seeing this book around the blogosphere, and every time I read a review I want it more.
Great review.
This was one of those books that kept me up nights while I was reading it. I felt compelled to look back at footage and other information that I vaguely remember hearing about in the aftermath, but that has gotten lost in the haze in the past 10 years.
There's been a lot of controversy on this book on Amazon's reviews, with people supposedly close to the Columbine community saying that Cullen bent the facts to fit his thesis. I'm not sure if we'll ever know the validity of those people's claims, but for what Cullen's account is worth, it's gripping and frightening.
Yes, I should read this. It still gives me the creeps just remembering!