The story you think you know
My wife and I have just finished reading Dave Cullen's masterful book, simply titled "Colombine." The book, in creation since Cullen himself was on scene the afternoon of the shooting, is an in-depth look at "the worst school shooting in U.S. history," which as he points out is absolutely NOT the result the shooters were aiming at.
The amazing thing about Cullen's book is that everyone already knows the story. Right? We know about the Trench Coat Mafia of disaffected students that wore dark trench coats and hated athletes. We know about Cassie Bernall's "Yes I believe in God" statement before being gunned down into martyrdom. We know. Right? Except, as Cullen's book unfolds, it turns out we don't know. So many myths sprouted the afternoon of April 20, 1999, literally taking on a life of their own even as the bodies of the killers and their victims still lay where they fell. This was, after all, a crime and a tragedy that took place LIVE on national TV. And TV news needs "facts" right now, not in a few days after the police have had a chance to work. So those "facts" were broadcast, and rebroadcast, and became a part of our national narrative, whether the "facts" had any basis in truth or not.
Cullen was at Columbine that afternoon, and he's been back hundreds of times since. He seems to have talked to every surviving major player in the story, and to most of them many times. The lone exception to this is the parents of the killers, mastermind sociopath Eric Harris and his depressed/suicidal sidekick, Dylan Klebold. Their parents, understandably, declined to talk. But Cullen does have the killers' journals and videotapes, the records they left the world of their plans and their thoughts.
It is quite a feat, for a writer, to take a story everyone knows and make it read like a suspense thriller. Cullen has done that here. It's also quite a feat to take down the framework of myths that have built up around Columbine and replace them with actual truth and facts.
Facts. Eric and Dylan weren't there to do a school shooting; their goal was to blow the whole place up. The guns were just to take down survivors of the bombing as they ran for safety from the burning rubble of the school. The killers' goal was maximum body count; they weren't aiming for specific students or specific types of students. Cassie Bernall wasn't asked if she believed in God; in fact that was another girl, one who survived her bullet wounds.
Cullen kept going back to Columbine after the rest of the media went off to the next crisis; he tells not only the stories of the shooting but also the stories of grief and anger and hope and healing that sprung up afterwards. It is in those stories that the true depth of this book comes through. Cullen also followed the investigation and talked with the investigators. He shines the light on a Sheriff's department that was woefully unprepared to handle an attack on the scale of Columbine.
There are times in this story that tear your heart out. Parents of the fallen students, waiting as surviving students are brought in on busses…waiting until all the survivors have come and gone, and their children aren't among them. Then waiting another whole day before the search of the school is complete and the bodies are removed from the scene. A teacher bleeding to death, even as students posted a message by the window calling for help NOW.
There are parts that also make you question yourself, especially if you're a parent. Do you really know your kids? Do you know what they're thinking and feeling? No expert would point to the Harris or Klebold homes and say, "Yeah…that's the environment that raises a mass murderer." They were intact marriages; moms and dads trying to do right by their kids. Probably moms and dads like a lot of us are. It is a sobering thought.
If you want to know the truth about Columbine, here it is. At times it's shocking; at times beautiful. But it's all here.
Note: COLUMBINE is available in hardback, paperback and Kindle formats. You can also follow Dave Cullen on Twitter.
3 comments:
NIce review Todd. My daughter, Angela, was born the day before Columbine shooting happened. We were in the hospital when it was unfolding on the TV news stations. Such a strange mixture of feelings that day.
Thanks, Todd. That was a truly wonderful review. You really captured what I felt was important about the book. Thanks for putting such thought into writing about it. (And such thought into the reading--an activity that gets too little attention, in my view.)
And thanks for the Twitter link. I try to be candid in my updates there.
There's lots more info at my Columbine site.
I just 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.
This was a good book on a tough subject and you put into words many of my thoughts.
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