I spent ten years on Columbine. I was driven by two questions: why did they kill, and what became of the survivors?

My big surprise was that most of what we "know" about Columbine was wrong. It wasn't about the jocks, goths or the Trenchcoat Mafia. The killers didn't even see themselves as school shooters: their primary focus was the bombs.

To understand this tragedy, the key is letting go of our concept of "the killers." Spend a few chapters with Eric and Dylan, and you'll discover two starkly different boys. Their personalities were poles apart, like the motives that drove them. Eric Harris was monstrous; Dylan Klebold was a revelation.

The survivors proved equally illuminating. Their stories are surprisingly uplifting—a refreshing contrast to Eric and Dylan. Thousands faced the unthinkable, most overcame it, often in extraordinary ways. I was amazed by their resilience.

I was also surprised to learn just how different the experience can be for people going through it side by side. Each survivor's recovery is unique, and the greatest lesson other communities can learn: Don't try to rush their healing! Fuller description of the book below.

Boston/Newtown/Aurora tragedies: What we've learned
My commentary

• Slate: Is Boston Like Columbine? April 19, 2013.
• New York Times op-ed: Don't Jump to Conclusions About the Killer, July 22, 2012.
• Newsweek: What Does A Killer Think, July 30, 2012.
• Links to my appearances addressing the tragedies on CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, NPR, BBC, SkyTV, etc.
  

Make a difference: Help a kid
Two million teens clinically depressed

Teen depression is the great unlearned lesson of Columbine. Six percent of U.S. adolescents suffer clinical depression. That’s 2 million kids. We keep getting wake-up calls, but it's time to act. Readers tell me they don't know where to begin, so I created Teen Depression 101 to share what I've learned and help get you started. It includes warning signs, resources, discussion-starters, etc.

Parents and teachers: please discuss depression openly with kids. Our Columbine Teacher's Guide has a Teen Depression unit to help. Renowned hostage negotiator and head of the FBI's Columbine investigation, Dr. Dwayne Fuselier has published a practical guide for parents/teachers to talk to kids—using the same approach that helps talk down gunmen: active listening.

See a kid in danger? Get him or her help. Save a life.

Resources

• Teen Suicide Hotline: 1-800-SUICIDE
• Warning signs, more
• Dr. Fuselier's active listening guide.

For gay kids (high risk, particular problems)

• The Trevor Project Hotline: 866-488-7386
• It Gets Better Project

Bullying

• Teen Tools: bullying & harassment
• Bullies to buddies
• NEA: 10 Steps to Stop and Prevent Bullying.

News: miniseries & stage play

• Lifetime is developing* the book as a miniseries. The production team has produced several Oscar-winning/nominated films, including Moneyball, The Social Network,and Boys Don't Cry. (Also Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the award-winning 2011 mini-series Mildred Pierce.) Early details at this Hollywood Reporter story. Acclaimed indie writer-director Tommy O'Haver is adapting it for the screen.

  * "In development" is an early stage in the process for TV/film. Lifetime is actively engaged but the project has not yet been green lit. Follow this space for developments. (Or my Facebook/Twitter. Links to the right.)

• A dramatic stage play is also under development, called "The Library." It has a very different, and narrower focus than the miniseries. It is being created by a completely different and hugely-talented team, all three Oscar winners: written by Scott Z. Burns, directed by Steven Soderbergh and produced by Kathleen Kennedy. (Kennedy has produced all Steven Spielberg's films since ET; Soderbergh won the Best Director Oscar for Traffic; and Burns wrote several of Soderbergh's recent films and won the Oscar for producing An Inconvenient Truth.) A bit more here.

Autographed copies

Information on obtaining one here.

New Columbine disclosures in expanded paperback
from Eric Harris's parents, 2010

When the book came out, I was touched by the warm response from so many survivors. After publication, many approached me to reveal more insights. So in 2010, we published an expanded paperback edition with an afterword to include them.

The afterword reveals four secret meetings involving all four parents of the killers. This stunning development provides the first real insight into the mindsets of Wayne and Kathy Harris.

The awkward encounters play out along with updates on three survivors of the Columbine shooting, and their starkly different perspectives on "forgiveness."

The expanded edition also adds scans from the killers' journals, a diagram of the attack and book club questions. (Oprah.com has more.)

Columbine Description
from the book jacket

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their plan was staggering: to blow up their school, surpass Oklahoma City in horror, and leave "a lasting impression on the world." The bombs failed. But the unprecedented attack unleashed a new era of violence in schools—branding every future shooting "another Columbine."

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; Cassie Bernall, mistaken Columbine martyr; and Patrick Ireland, "the boy in the window"—the whole world watching his gutsy escape. Now, in a gripping work of journalism a full decade in the making, comes the story we never knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen debunks the myths and produces a profile of teen killers that burrows to the core of psychopathology. He reveals two radically different killers: Eric Harris, the callously brutal mastermind, and Dylan Klebold, the quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire.

Columbine unfolds seamlessly, in an unforgettable tale of two honor students with a healthy circle of friends, secretly stockpiling a cache of weapons in the basement. They recorded their vitriol on film while manipulating every adult who could have stopped them. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left warnings all around them—described by Cullen with a sharp investigative eye and psychological acumen. Culling from hundreds of interviews, thousands of police files, testimony from world-class psychologists brought in by the FBI, and the boys' videos and journals, he delivers the first comprehensive account of the tragic Columbine school shooting.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A riveting tale of murder, redemption, police cover-up, and a town apart—the haunting cautionary tale for our age.

Intro Video
Book trailer

Columbine surprises most readers. This tight little video by South Park filmmaker Andrew Kemler captures its essence in 3 minutes.

You will meet the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. You will get a sense of what drove them to plot the Columbine school shooting and what they wrought. The video includes clips of the killers acting out on their Hitmen For Hire video, and cafeteria surveillance footage of them during the Columbine shooting.

This is the easiest way to gauge whether Columbine is the book for you.

Embed or link the video on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Use anchor text Columbine. Your impact is huge. Thanks.

Why I Published Columbine
by Jonathan Karp

Dear Reader:

I was drawn to Dave Cullen's work by a New York Times column by David Brooks, who praised Cullen's freelance writing on the Columbine shooting. Cullen had been on the scene at Columbine High School from day one and had distinguished himself as the most authoritative writer on the subject. I asked him to write a short book on the massacre.

That was about ten years ago. Since then, this gifted and relentless writer has lived with this story every day, going to extraordinary lengths to understand this tragedy from every relevant perspective: through the eyes of the families, school officials, investigators, community leaders, and most amazingly, the killers themselves, who left behind such extensive personal testimony and evidence about their plans that the author has been able to do something truly remarkable—document the descent of two teenage boys from a typical adolescent life into madness and murder.

What is shocking about the Columbine shooting is just how ordinary these two boys seemed. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold loved their parents, did their homework, worked at the local pizzeria, and—contrary to widely reported accounts—were well-liked by their peers. With precision and perspective that will haunt and amaze you, Dave Cullen has crafted an indelible portrait of American youth that is at once familiar and horrifying. Better than any author I have ever read, he describes the psychological journey through which young men become killers.

This is not an easy story to confront, but I have no doubt that Columbine will be regarded as a classic of literary nonfiction and the definitive work on the community that suffered one of the most violent tragedies of our time.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Karp
Editor In Chief and Publisher*
Twelve Books (Hachette Book Group)

* He is now publisher of Simon & Schuster.

Critics on Columbine

"What's amazing is how much of Cullen's book still comes as a surprise . . . [His] nuanced dissection of the differences between Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold is first-rate."
— New York Times Book Review

"Cullen makes it work because he insists on framing the killers in human terms . . . That's tricky ground for a writer to navigate, to ask, if not for understanding, for compassion for two boys regarded as monsters."
— Los Angeles Times

"The pacing of an action movie and the complexity of a Shakespearean drama."
— Newsweek

"Read this book for its unflinching honesty . . . You may want to leave the horror behind you—that may be why you haven't yet picked up Columbine, journalist Dave Cullen's spectacularly gripping account. But Cullen's chilling narrative is too vital to miss."
— O: The Oprah Magazine

"This superb work of investigation looks to be a definitive account."
— Columbia Journalism Review

"Cullen's Klebold is a lonely depressive, and all too easily manipulated. Harris is a genuine psychopath, a natural-born killer. And yet, both boys emerge as three-dimensional human beings. Throughout, Cullen refuses to sensationalize."
— Very Short List

"Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this tour de force gets below the who and what of a horrifying incident to lay bare the devastating why."
— People

"An astonishingly comprehensive look at the incident and the decade of struggle."
— Chicago Tribune

"It opens with a proclamation of love and concludes with an image of redemption, and what unfolds in the pages between them is extraordinary."
— Charlotte Observer

"Graphic and emotionally vivid; spectacularly researched and analyzed."
— Booklist (starred review)

"Definitive . . . a staggering feat of reporting that completes and corrects the record in equal measure."
— GQ

"Accomplishes an astonishing number of things in compelling, articulate prose . . . Most remarkable is Cullen's ability to present an onslaught of facts while recreating such anguish and fear. Columbine is a valuable historic resource, but it roils the heart, too."
— Miami Herald

"This book is a masterpiece."
— Seattle Times

"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?. . . Readers will come away from Cullen's unflinching account with a deeper understanding of what drove these boys to kill."
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Click for all Columbine reviews—with longer passages and links.

More

• Awards
• Excerpts
• Columbine Teacher's Guide (free)
• Columbine Student Guide (free)
• Booking Dave for Skype or school assembly

Buy Columbine

Autographed copies (shipped worldwide)