32 - Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Twelve Books, 2009

417 pages

Date completed: May 25, 2010

Columbine by Dave Cullen is without a doubt the most disturbing book I have ever read, but in the most compelling way possible. Wow. I chose it because I was so young when the attacks occurred, and so I didn’t know much about them and wanted to be better informed. Cullen’s account of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolds’ shooting spree in Columbine High School was certainly worthwhile. Cullen, a journalist who has been involved with the Columbine shooting case since the day it occurred, provides a thorough account of the shootings, the aftermath of the attack, the killers, and their motives. Utilizing police reports, interviews with survivors and investigators, the papers and videos of Harris and Klebold, and the research of other journalists, Cullen compiles a detailed and compelling account of April 20, 1999.

Cullen states that it is important to document and understand the Columbine attack in order to prevent future attacks. His depiction definitely succeeds in capturing the spirit of the event—often, I was so freaked out by what I was reading (phrases such as “Eric and Dylan planned to be dead shortly after the weekend” and “Danny[‘s body] lay out on that sidewalk for twenty-eight hours” (103) come to mind) that I had to stop reading. Obviously Cullen is purposely sensational sometimes in order to make his point, but it was nevertheless difficult to wrap my head around the fact that the attack really happened, and so reading this in large doses was not always possible for me. I had to stop reading it after around 8 or 9 p.m., since if I didn't, I got nightmares.

The more I read the book, the more unsettling it became. I learned a lot from the reading that I had never known previously: chilling facts surfaced constantly, such as the fact while planning their attack, Harris and Klebold intended for it to be more of a massacre. Although they ended up killing thirteen people in addition to themselves, they originally had a three-stage plan: first, massive bombs would explode in crowded hubs throughout the school, destroying part of the building and killing at least 800 people; then Harris and Klebold would stand at the school’s two most popular entrances with machine guns in order to slaughter escaping survivors; and finally, they had rigged their cars with massive explosives designed to decimate the police and journalists swarming the school after their suicides. I had had no idea that the attack was meant so grisly (not that it wasn’t horrifying anyway—a simple Google search of “Dylan Klebold” immediately yields a photograph of Harris and Klebold dead on the Columbine library floor, with blood splattered and pooled under the gaping gunshot wounds in their heads).

One really interesting aspect of the book was that it explored the many assumptions and stereotypes associated with both Columbine and with school shootings in general. People tend to assume that Harris and Klebold fit the generic stereotype of school shooters—that they were Goth, trenchcoat-wearing, anti-Christian outcasts whose intention was to take revenge on the popular students and jocks at their school. In reality, there is no established "school shooter profile." Harris and Klebold were both relatively popular in the sense that they both had a great deal of friends, and Harris was quite the ladies’ man. Klebold was deeply faithful, and neither Harris nor Klebold were Goth, although they did wear trenchcoats to conceal their weapons during the attack.

The other prevalent rumor is the one surrounding Cassie Bernall, the girl who was reportedly shot to death after admitting that she believed in God. This, too, proved to be a rumor, and never actually occurred: people assumed that Cassie’s faith must have played a role in her death, and since the assumption that the shooters were anti-Christian was already in place, the result is a rumor that combines the previous two assumptions to insinuate that Cassie was a martyr. It doesn't help that an exchange similar to the alleged conversation with Cassie actually did occur between Klebold and another girl, Valeen Schnurr.

Overall, Cullen’s book covers all of the bases, providing everything from a play-by-play of the shootings and their aftermath to an extensive portrait of Harris and Klebolds’ personalities, childhoods, journals, and videotapes. Cullen provides a stunning portrait of a disaster that shocked America, and I loved reading it. The book was quite disturbing, but so was the Columbine massacre, and I think it would be difficult to hear about any such disaster without feeling an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and loss. This type of book is informative and, to me, important and even essential to understanding disaster and living through it. I respect Cullen’s book for its integrity and for its success in covering every angle of the Columbine massacre. What a powerful book.