Chances are you remember the footage. The two figures clutching guns stalking the abandoned school cafeteria, the frightened students outside. More likely you remember how Columbine came to mean so much more than just a high school massacre, it incited debate about gun legislation and the availability of weapons, bullying, subcultures, violent movies, music, parental responsibility, school security, antidepressants, religion. In his astoundingly powerful Columbine Dave Cullen painstakingly reconstructs April 20th, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed their high school and killed 12 students, 1 teacher, and injured over twenty others before committing suicide; Cullen also looks at the aftermath of the massacre, and questions everything we think we know and believe about Columbine.
Cullen opens his report with coverage of the weekend leading up to the massacre. He outlines the things Eric and Dylan did that weekend – not so much the meticulous and obsessive planning and preparation – but the everyday, teenage routines. Dylan went to prom, Eric received a promotion at the pizza joint they worked at, their interests, activities, personalities, emotions, their strengths and weaknesses, their family and active social lives. Cullen creates portraits of these boys which, disturbing as it may be to some, humanizes them. Rather than using the tired “monster” image, Cullen looks at them as humans. This, I think, is effective in raising questions about motivations and reasoning. Despite their heinous crimes, dismissing their actions as those of monsters or evil is just a way of avoiding confrontation and fear that two average, suburban teenage boys did this. It shifts responsibility away from them as individuals and on to society, culture, whatever – which doubtlessly played a role, but it takes a lot of strength to look into the darker parts of the human psyche to try and see what really caused them to kill.
We remember Columbine as a pair of outcasts Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-standing feud. Almost none of that happened. No Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No targets, no feud, and no Trench Coat Mafia. Most of these elements existed at Columbine – which is what gave them such currency. They just had nothing to do with the murders. The lesser myths are equally unsupported: no connection to Marilyn Manson, Hitler’s birthday, minorities or Christians.
Few people knowledgeable about the case believe those myths anymore. Not reporters, investigators, families of the victims, or their legal teams. And yet most of the public takes them for granted. Why?
It is somewhat confronting to realize how deeply the myths about Columbine – the supposed outcast and bullied victim status of Dylan and Eric, the trenchcoats, etc.- run, primarily thanks to saturated media coverage. Cullen never resorts to conspiratorial theories about why the media so openly propagated these myths, and instead offers a sound reasoning as to how and why these stories took hold. He is careful to never lay blame on the victims or the witnesses, but is unrepetent on the media which used the testimonies of unreliable witnesses – being that their horribly traumatic experiences – without question. Of course the brain and memory functions differently in such high-stress situations, and yet the media took these accounts, even off the cuff remarks as absolute truths. His ruthless attitude toward the abused responsibility and power of the media seems to be, at least in part, a redemptive act – making up for mistakes he may have made in his original reporting on the situation. It’s interesting to consider the delay in the relay of information – local papers would print information one day and it would filter out to more national outlets the following day – and how today’s faster dissemination of information and news could leave it prone to further mistakes. Even the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall (who it was originally claimed was asked if she believed in God by Eric, she said yes and he shot her. This has since been disproved – although another student did have this exchange with Eric, she survived.) survives due to the infiltration of false information. Here however, it was used – effectively – by the religious sector to further their own cause, as though we were so desperate for a symbol of hope in amongst all the horror than even one based on misinformation would do. Nonetheless, Cullen provides a powerful symbol of hope in the figure of Patrick Ireland, shot multiple times and escaped from the school via the library window, Cullen takes us through Ireland’s painful recovery process and forgiveness, through to Patrick overcoming his physical ailments and dancing at his wedding.
The uncovering of Eric and Dylan’s previous arrests, search warrants, threats of violence, violent stories seems to have been strangely covered up, Cullen discusses these criminal histories not so much to shift the blame or to show where the Columbine attack could have been prevented, but who these boys were, what happened in the lead up to April 20. An FBI investigator deems that Eric was a psychopath – he used violence for pure enjoyment and to demonstrate his superiority; Dylan was a depressive who was willingly roped into Eric’s plans. This distinct lack of motive is what drives the curiousity and continuing search for answers, and perhaps is the most frightening aspect of the whole saga: it seems we cannot accept that there may never have been a logical reason behind their acts, so we keep looking for scapegoats, easy answers, for someone or something to blame.
Dave Cullen so effectively erases his own authorial voice that it is very easy to accept everything he writes as the definitive version of the massacre, and yet so much remains unanswered and contradictory. I still feel like it is important to note that despite his indepth research, conjecture and consultation with experts on the case, it is still only one journalists interpretation of events. The only two people who could ever answer the many questions their actions raised died that afternoon in the library, but Cullen does an stellar job of debunking the myths and tracing the boys’ evolution from high school kids to mass murderers. The book trailer on youtube features Dave Cullen speaking about the book and makes me want to read Columbine again. This story will get inside your head, it’s intense, frightening and confronting but absolutely necessary.
I bought this book yesterday. An unplanned purchase on a random trip to the bookstore. It just jumped at me. I live in the Philippines, and am logistically and culturally miles away from the incident at Columbine. But it still resonates.
Reading your review makes me want to start Cullen’s reportage immediately.
It really is amazing, Columbine was one of those events that transcended all geographic and cultural boundaries – high school is almost universal it seems. Cullen makes it seem just as relevant and poignant now as it was ten years ago. I haven’t been able to return the library copy yet because I’m strongly considering rereading it already. I really hope you enjoy it and find it as interesting and engaging as I did.
Thanks for the kind words on my book, Jess. That was a very thoughtful, insightful review, and I really appreciate it.
There’s lots more info at my Columbine site. Because of the interest from students and teachers/profs, I’ve also created lesson plans and I’m doing phone-ins or skype to book clubs.
An expanded paperback edition is just out, including scans from the killers’ journals and a 12-page afterword: “Forgiveness.” It includes startling new revelations on the killers’ parents. The purpose, though, was to look at three victims in very different places 11 years later, and how forgiving played a pivotal role in their grief. I discovered the secret meetings with the killers’ parents in the process.
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This was my favorite non fiction read of last year, along with Jeff Sparrow’s Killing, which makes a good companion piece.
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Dave Cullen is nothing but a lying,opportunistic famewhore. His book is riddled with odious lies.
Its disgusting how quick you all are to swallow whatever the liar says without doing any further research.
Anyone with any real knowledge about Columbine knows what a liar Cullen is and how flawed and worthless his book is.Obviously, none of you on this page have more than a surface knowledge of the subject or you wouldn’t be mooning over Cullen’s badly written book of fiction.
Okay. Could you elaborate further? What points that Cullen makes do you see as lies, and what then is your “truth” of Columbine? I’m genuinely interested to hear your thoughts and opinion.
Yes I can. Try this for starters:
=Factual Inaccuracies==
Dave Cullen’s book alleges that Eric Harris was involved in a romantic and sexual relationship with a woman several years his senior, Brenda Parker.
However, according to the official police interview in the 11K she confessed to making up the relationship, in addition to making up knowing about the attack prior to it happening and being afraid to partake in it.
Interview- “After a lengthy conversation she admitted that she wrote the above, but that it was not true. She just made it up to get attention. She stated she has no life and spends way too much time on the internet.”
(note- JC-001-010843 to 010851)
* [http://www.acolumbinesite.com/reports/cr/report.html Link to the entire 11K Report, see pages 10800-10900]
Cullen claims that Eric Harris was a swaggering ladies’ man and confident social king. This assertion is ludicrous.
Cullen writes that Eric “got lots of girls” and had sex with a 24-year-old woman named Brenda Parker. He even quotes Parker in his book. The truth is that Parker had no connection to Harris or the tragedy; she was a “fangirl” who sought attention by making up stories. She has *zero* credibility.
Eric tried to get a date to the prom; he failed. He asked several girls, all of whom turned him down. He finally convinced a girl he met at the pizza place where he worked to spend a couple of hours at his house on the night of the prom; they watched a movie. She declined to attend the after-prom party with him, so he went alone.
Harris was fairly short (5’8″) and very skinny, with a deformed chest due to his pelvus excavatum. As his body language in the following video (recorded in a hallway at Columbine and shown in a documentary about the massacre) demonstrates, he was no match for the larger boys he encountered on a daily basis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZix8_7f_lY
In his final journal entry, Eric wrote:
“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t — say, “well thats your fault” because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh — nooo.”
Does that sound like someone who was confident and socially successful?
…
Cullen perpetuates the long-standing myth that Dylan was a sad little emo follower who was totally led by Harris.
The truth is that Dylan was the one who wrote about going on a killing spree before Eric; he even wanted to do it with someone else.
(Keep in mind that Eric and Dylan intended the massacre to be a bombing event with a shooting element. Their plans went awry.)
…
On Monday, November 3, 1997, Dylan wrote in his journal:
“[edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want. more crazy…deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([edited] & [edited] gettin drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die.”
He wrote “*my* killing spree”, not “*our* killing spree”.
…
Those who have seen the basement tapes have said that, on them, Dylan appears far more eager and enthusiastic than Eric.
On the tapes, Eric apologizes to his family; Dylan does not.
On one tape, Eric is seen alone, tearing up when he thinks about his friends back in Michigan. He even turns the tape off so he will not be captured crying on camera.
If he truly was a pure psychopath, as Cullen claims, is it likely that he would have cried while thinking about old friends?
There is also piece after piece of evidence asbout E &D being picked on and ostracized on a wide scale. Something Cullen denies ever happened.
Whats my truth about this event?
My truth is that E &D were bullied and tried as inhuman long enough until they decided that life was no longer worth living and decided to get revenge on a school and community that delighted in degrading them.
I’ve been in their shoes. I know what they feels like.
Unless you’ve been treated that badly long enough by enough people, you do not.
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