Columbine by Dave Cullen

From The Week of August 16, 2009

This is a powerful retelling of one of the most disturbing and misunderstood events in the history of the United States, the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 which claimed the lives of 13 students plus the two perpetrators. Mr. Cullen challenges the prevailing view of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the instigators of the massacre, as two homicidal teenagers, amped up to kill by the nihilism of Goth culture, as exemplified by Marilyn Manson, and by the desensitizing effects of modern, violent video games. According to Mr. Cullen, these are mischaracterizations brought about by the media's need to judge an event immediately upon its conclusion. The media is not willing to wait months and years for the portraits of Harris (psychopathic) and Klebold (suicidal depressive) to take shape. Nor is it willing to wait around to discover the myriad ways in which the police bungled its response to the massacre. And when it is willing to investigate the lives of the students involved, it focuses on the victims, inadvertently aiding in one family's sanctification of their slain daughter based on an exchange with Harris alleged by witnesses to have never occurred.

But the aftermath of Columbine is only the dark half of Mr. Cullen's tale. The rest is taken up by tender and thoughtful representations of the victims, their lives and dreams, and of the brave teachers who did what they could to help save the defenseless students. Ultimately, Mr. Cullen concludes, Columbine's death toll could have been far higher had Harris and Klebold's plans succeeded as they imagined them. And for a police all too often deaf to nuanced work, that should be a dire warning indeed. An excellent and heartbreaking read. (4/5 Stars)