Columbine
By Dave Cullen, 2009, Hatchett Book Group, Hardcover, 402 pages, $26.99
Let's get one thing straight: Dave Cullen knows more about the Columbine Massacre than you do. Or I do. Even more than some of the people who went to Columbine High or lived in Littleton, Colo. And most probably more than the Jefferson County Police who botched the case and went into serious cover-your-ass mode, and those in the evangelical movement who used the tragedy for its own advantage.
However, Cullen's recently released book, "Columbine," marking the events of 10 years ago, has led to some controversy. Cullen was a Denver-based writer for Salon.com and other publications when, on April 20, 1999, two Columbine seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire on their classmates. They killed 15, including themselves, and injured 25. It was the largest school-shooting spree in the nation's history, watched live around the country on CNN, and the event propelled the small, incorporated Colorado suburb into the nation's consciousness.
Cullen has written numerous articles on Columbine since then, getting to know many of the figures involved. He's also read the journals of several people who wouldn't talk to him (Harris and Klebold's parents haven't spoken to the media, except for one interview that Tom Klebold gave to the New York Times).
There's been plenty of finger-pointing in the last decade: school bullying, video games, violent television, lax gun laws and Marilyn Manson videos have all been blamed, and at least one victim's parent believes that taking prayer out of the public school was a contributing factor. Many polls have shown that people would lay much of the blame on Eric and Dylan's parents. Cullen's point of view: Harris was a psychopath; Klebold was a manic-depressive with suicidal tendencies.
"We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through the high school, hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud," writes Cullen. "Kids who slammed the outcast label on Eric and Dylan had an active social calendar, and far more friends than the average adolescent."
Much of the author's viewpoint comes from Dwayne Fuselier, one of about 10 people Cullen focuses on in his non-linear narrative. Fuselier was a veteran FBI agent, clinical psychologist, terrorism expert and hostage negotiator at Waco. His son was a student at Columbine.
As the only psychologist on the investigative team, part of Fuselier's job was to find a motive for why this senseless violence had occurred. "Almost by accident, Fuselier stumbled upon Eric Harris' notebook, written from April 10, 1998 to April 3, 1999," writes Cullen. "' Holy shit,' Fuselier thought, 'he's telling us why he did it.'"
Eric and Dylan both wrote journals and made videos for over a year leading up to April 20 and Fuselier spent years studying them. "Klebold is easier to comprehend," Cullen tells us. "He was hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal. He blamed himself for his problems. Harris is the challenge. He was sweet-faced and well-spoken. Adults, and even some kids, described him as nice. But Harris was cold, calculating and homicidal."
Nevertheless, while "Columbine" has received generally good reviews, the book has been challenged by people such as Randy Brown, who has posted several critical comments on the Amazon.com message board: "The two largest problems I have with the book are: the author ascribes feelings and emotions to the killers without any basis in fact. Second, he and the FBI investigator (Fuselier) who helped him with the book say that bullying was not the cause of the murders." In his on-line review, Brown gave the book one star.
Ironically, Brown was someone that Cullen interviewed for the book. In fact, he was involved in one of the book's most interesting stories. His son, Brooks, was a friend of Harris', but the two boys had a falling-out about a year before the Columbine tragedy. Brooks' parents filed a report with the Jefferson County Police. Investigator Mike Guerra, believing that Eric had weapons in his home, wrote up a search warrant to search the Harris house, but Guerra drifted on to other cases and the search warrant was never filed with a judge. Later, after the shootings, the police tried to cover up that earlier report. (And, for what it's worth, Brooks wrote his own firsthand account of the tragedy a few years ago: "No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind The Deaths At Columbine.")
The problem with writing a book like "Columbine" is that it winds up being written from the perception of just those who agreed to be interviewed. Therefore, people like Columbine High's principal Frank DeAngelis, and a few of the parents, get an inordinate amount of coverage. While the book is dedicated to those who were killed, two fatalities -- Kelly Fleming and Kyle Velazquez -- aren't mentioned at all. Steve Curnow, who was killed, isn't mentioned either, but his father is referred to in a section about parents waiting to see if their kids were still alive.
Because of its exhaustive research, "Columbine" is worth reading. But because of its overdependence on certain people, anyone interested in the topic might want to go searching for other books as well.