Columbine - Dave Cullen (Kindle)

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. I was on an out-of-town job, pregnant with my son and a toddler at home when I saw the bloody, hysterical students running out of their school, when I saw Patrick Ireland fall out of that window. I was devastated; I was terrified. How could two boys go so wrong? How could I raise two children into a world like this?

I've read two other works of fiction that heavily reference Columbine - We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver) and The Hour I First Believed (Wally Lamb). And while I am a true crime junkie, I still hesitated to read this one. Could I handle the truth? Ten years later, my heart still hurts. Eventually, the need to understand won out over my fears.

I don't think I need to say much about what happened. April 20, 1999, two troubled boys, an arsenal of weapons, and a grand master plan to kill hundreds at their school. Ultimately, 13 were killed and dozens injured, some permanently. Their plan ultimately (thankfully) fell short because their home-made bombs failed to detonate. At the end of the spree they killed themselves, but they left behind notes, diagrams, journals and videos to paint a very specific picture for the public. They had nothing to hide. They were proud.

Cullen has done an exemplary job of collecting the facts. He has accumulated hundreds of hours of interviews, read the police documents, read newspaper articles, read Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's journals, and viewed the "Basement Tapes". It was his mission to set the record straight on the facts, as they had been skewed by the police department and the media from the second the first shot was fired. It was also his mission to better understand the why, through the help of the FBI clinical psychologist and Columbine investigator Dwayne Fuselier.

The facts were heartbreaking. Prepare yourself for some disturbing reading while Cullen recounts the actual shooting at the school. The students who were shot, killed, but left uncovered on the sidewalk for 28 hours. The teacher who bled to death because the SWAT team did not want to risk entry. The ultimate blood-bath in the library.

The facts are perplexing. The boys came from respectable, middle-class families, who may have been out of touch and allowed too much unsupervised free time, but were loving caring parents. Both boys were exceptionally bright.

The facts were twisted. The boys did not target the jocks. They were not part of the Trench Coat Mafia. They were not influenced by Marilyn Manson, they were not "goth", they were not loners.

But the warning signs were there. The boys started getting into minor mischief that escalated into vandalism, theft,building bombs, and eventually were arrested. They wrote essays that fixated on murder and violence. A search warrant, which would have uncovered their arsenal, was written but never filed.
Did it happen because of bullying, as many claimed? Fuselier does not believe so. In fact, he has declared Harris to be a full-blown psychopath...a kid who hated the world. Eric killed to demonstrate his superiority and to enjoy it. Klebold adversely was a depressive...he hated himself. He followed Harris as a way to end his misery.

It is mind-boggling to imagine the volume of data that Cullen had to assimilate to tell the story. But he has, and has done it well. He jumps back and forth between the event and its aftershock, and the background of Harris and Klebold leading up to the event. He examines the effect of the event on the community, on the survivors and where they are now, the lawsuits, the role of religion in the healing, the myths, the cover-ups, the steps taken to reopen the school...it is all here. It is the most complete true crime novel I've ever read, all written in an easy-to-read prose.

It is also important to emphasize that this is not an attempt to sensationalize the tragedy. It is tactful and factual - a real testament to the victims. A must-read.

5 out of 5 stars