‘Columbine’ reexamines shooting
By Corinne White, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Tuesday, May 18, 2010
I don’t often tear up, but I cried while reading the last chapter of Dave Cullen’s bestselling novel “Columbine” (2009), which was recently released in an expanded paperback edition. My own emotional reaction to the account of the 1999 Colorado school shooting is not altogether surprising, however, given Cullen’s emotional approach to writing the book.
“I hear all this talk about journalists having objectivity, but I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? I am emotionally involved.’” Cullen said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
In “Columbine,” Cullen paints an entirely different picture of the shootings than was portrayed by the mainstream press, including many details he gathered during his 10 years of interviewing those affected by the tragedy. Delving beneath the surface of the media’s portrayal of the events and even exploring the minds of the killers, Cullen’s novel is poignant, affecting and a truly remarkable read.
Cullen, who lives in Denver, said he found out about the shooting just like anyone else: by turning on the news.
“I was sitting down to lunch … It must have been about a quarter to noon when I turned on the TV, and they were just getting reports of shooting … when I started to see helicopters circling, that was the moment where I realized, ‘This is more serious than I thought,” Cullen said.
The notes Cullen took at Columbine High School that day — the people, the smells, the reactions — are used in his book, but he said it was not until the day after the shooting that he decided to invest himself in writing about the event.
“The scene that really got to me was how the kids had literally changed overnight,” Cullen said. “The day after the shooting, they had all stopped crying. I was really unnerved by what happened to these kids. For the first 22 hours since I had heard about the shooting, my focus had been on the kids who had died. But the morning after, that really changed. There’s 2,000 kids that are in incredible emotional danger. ”
While writing “Columbine,” Cullen said he experienced two bouts of secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction he had been unaware of before beginning to write the novel.
“I do something called method writing where, when I write a scene, I picture myself in that room, and picture myself inside of each of the people involved, and try to feel what it’s like to be them … Writing that way turned out to be really debilitating,” Cullen said. Cullen added that he was surprised to find that it was much easier to write about the killers than the survivors.
“I thought [writing about the killers] would be psychologically dangerous, but it wasn’t — it was fine ... What was hard for me was talking to the survivors — I would absorb so much of their grief,” he said.
“Columbine” does more than explore the psychological trauma of the events, however it also reveals many facts about the shooting that were not as heavily popularized in the mainstream media before the book’s 2009 release. For example, the killers had set up bombs on the school grounds that failed to detonate. Their intention was not to kill 11, but the whole school.
Cullen cited this as an example of the public’s willingness to believe what they are told without investigating events for themselves, which he said is what he attempted to do in his book.
“People didn’t accept it because they still wanted to believe that the killers were targeting jocks,” Cullen said. “We remember a storyline, and if there are parts that don’t fit into what we want to believe, we’ll ignore it. If the garbage makes sense, we’ll take it. And that to me is quite scary. It really makes you think about how much responsibility the media really has.”
Dave Cullen’s book is well-written and contains interesting information not found elsewhere, but it is not the definitive, myth-busting account of the 4/20 massacre it purports to be.
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Cullen claims that Eric Harris was a swaggering ladies' man and confident social king. This assertion is ludicrous.
Cullen writes that Eric “got lots of girls” and had sex with a 24-year-old woman named Brenda Parker. He even quotes Parker in his book. The truth is that Parker had no connection to Harris or the tragedy; she was a “fangirl” who sought attention by making up stories. She has zero credibility.
Eric tried to get a date to the prom; he failed. He asked several girls, all of whom turned him down. He finally convinced a girl he met at the pizza place where he worked to spend a couple of hours at his house on the night of the prom; they watched a movie. She declined to attend the after-prom party with him, so he went alone.
Harris was fairly short (5'8") and very skinny, with a deformed chest due to his pelvus excavatum. As his body language in the following video (recorded in a hallway at Columbine and shown in a documentary about the massacre) demonstrates, he was no match for the larger boys he encountered on a daily basis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZix8_7f_lY
In his final journal entry, Eric wrote:
“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t —– say, "well thats your fault” because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh —– nooo."
Does that sound like someone who was confident and socially successful?
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Cullen perpetuates the long-standing myth that Dylan was a sad little emo follower who was totally led by Harris.
The truth is that Dylan was the one who wrote about going on a killing spree before Eric; he even wanted to do it with someone else.
(Keep in mind that Eric and Dylan intended the massacre to be a bombing event with a shooting element. Their plans went awry.)
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On Monday, November 3, 1997, Dylan wrote in his journal:
“[edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want. more crazy…deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([edited] & [edited] gettin drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die.”
He wrote “my killing spree”, not “our killing spree”.
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Those who have seen the basement tapes have said that, on them, Dylan appears far more eager and enthusiastic than Eric.
On the tapes, Eric apologizes to his family; Dylan does not.
On one tape, Eric is seen alone, tearing up when he thinks about his friends back in Michigan. He even turns the tape off so he will not be captured crying on camera.
If he truly was a pure psychopath, as Cullen claims, is it likely that he would have cried while thinking about old friends?
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Cullen writes that Dylan had doubts about “going NBK” – NBK was the killers' code word for the massacre – during the attack. One wonders how he came to this conclusion.
At the school on 4/20, Dylan was the one who seemed to be enjoying himself. Eric was subdued in comparison.
At one point, Dylan saw one of his victims writhing in pain.
“Here, let me help you,” he said – and shot the boy in the face.
Was that the action of someone who had doubts about what he was doing?
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This is not the forum for a thorough debunking of Cullen’s claims. The bottom line is that the book, while useful in some respects, is not the definitive, myth-busting account it purports to be.
Read Mr. Cullen’s book, but also read Columbine: A True Crime Story" by Jeff Kass; “No Easy Answers” by Brooks Brown; “Comprehending Columbine” by Ralph Larkin; and as many other books as you can find. Read the killers' journals and other writings (www.acolumbinesite.com is a good starting point). Read the documents (very begrudgingly) released by law enforcement over the years.
Keep an open mind and remember that the “truth” is always very elusive.
By Stan on May 19 | 2:52 pm
Thanks for such a thoughtful interview and review of my book, Connie.
I was really impressed during the interview—it was among the best I’ve had. You really captured the flavor of the book and of my experience in this piece. Thanks.
For people interested in the book or the case, there is a lot more info at my <a href=“http://davecullen.com/columbine.htm”>Columbine</a> site. It includes a 3-minute intro video. And because of the interest from students and teachers/profs, I’ve also created lesson plans and I’m doing phone-ins or skype to book clubs.
Thanks, again. Great job.
By Dave Cullen on May 19 | 7:41 pm