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Title details for Columbine by Dave Cullen - Wait list

Columbine

by Dave Cullen
Emily Janice Card
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On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence—irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window—with the whole world watching him. In this riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making comes the story none of us knew. This revelatory book offers a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. Dave Cullen, the acclaimed journalist who followed the massacre from day one, lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal.

The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boys' tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers—an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    April 6, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781483066424
      • File size: 406438 KB
      • Duration: 14:06:44

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Colorado journalist Dave Cullen's meticulous research dispels the myths and hasty assumptions surrounding the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. Cullen's conclusions are drawn from hundreds of interviews and the wealth of information left behind by shooters Harris and Klebold. Apparently, Columbine was a painstakingly planned bombing gone wrong. Only when the bombs failed to detonate did the shooting begin. Don Leslie's nuanced reading of the disturbing material makes clear that the boys were not goths, gay, or bullied. Leslie is mesmerizing as he makes Cullen's case that Harris was predisposed to psychopathy and Klebold was erratic, depressed, and suicidal. Once they got together, the dyad became deadly. If this important book were fiction, it would be devastating. Knowing it really happened is heartbreaking. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 23, 2009
      In this remarkable account of the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School shooting, journalist Cullen not only dispels several of the prevailing myths about the event but tackles the hardest question of all: why did it happen? Drawing on extensive interviews, police reports and his own reporting, Cullen meticulously pieces together what happened when 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves. The media spin was that specific students, namely jocks, were targeted and that Dylan and Eric were members of the Trench Coat Mafia. According to Cullen, they lived apparently normal lives, but under the surface lay “an angry, erratic depressive” (Klebold) and “a sadistic psychopath” (Harris), together forming a “combustible pair.” They planned the massacre for a year, outlining their intentions for massive carnage in extensive journals and video diaries. Cullen expertly balances the psychological analysis—enhanced by several of the nation's leading experts on psychopathology—with an examination of the shooting's effects on survivors, victims' families and the Columbine community. Readers will come away from Cullen's unflinching account with a deeper understanding of what drove these boys to kill, even if the answers aren't easy to stomach.

    • Library Journal

      August 15, 2009
      Relying on more than ten years of research, award-winning journalist Cullen (www.davecullen.com) here pieces together a stunning, authoritative, full-scope view of the Columbine tragedy, reaching powerful and controversial conclusions and revealing several facts previously unknown to the public. Don Leslie ("The 48 Laws of Power") reads with both sensation and objectivity, escalating emotion during the often graphic diary passages and helping the story to flow. However, the narrative's continual jumping back and forth in time may confuse listeners. For Ann Rule and Jon Krakauer fans. [The Twelve: Hachette hc, a "New York Times" best seller, was recommended as "definitely worth reading despite the disjointed narrative," "LJ" 3/15/09.Ed.]Terry Ann Lawler, Phoenix P.L.

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.