What Does Dave Cullen's Book Columbine Cover and Argue?

Updated

Dave Cullen's Columbine is a work of narrative nonfiction that reconstructs the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and argues that the attack has been widely misunderstood. Its central claim is that Eric Harris was a calculating, psychopathic killer who planned the massacre as a bombing and terror event, while Dylan Klebold was a depressed and suicidal follower—not a pair of bullied outcasts retaliating against jocks, and not martyrs for any cause. The book is a fit for readers who want a reported, myth-correcting account of the shooting and its aftermath rather than a first-person survivor memoir or a policy argument.

The book's central thesis

Cullen's argument rests on a distinction between the two shooters' motives and mental states:

  • Eric Harris is portrayed as the driving force: a grandiose, remorseless planner who wanted to exceed other mass killers in body count and infamy, and who concealed his intent from adults.
  • Dylan Klebold is portrayed as depressed, suicidal, and increasingly pulled along by Harris—angry and despairing, but not the architect.
  • The attack is framed as a failed bombing that became a shooting. The plan centered on propane bombs in the cafeteria; when those failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold improvised with guns.
  • Cullen treats the "Trench Coat Mafia" and jock-bully revenge explanations as myths that took hold in media coverage and public memory.

Narrative arc: from the shooting through the aftermath

The book moves in roughly three movements:

  1. Before and during — the planning, the hidden warning signs, the day of the attack, and the confusion inside the school as students and teachers tried to understand what was happening.
  2. The investigation and the myths — how early reporting produced inaccurate narratives (the bullied outcasts, the targeted jocks, the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall), and how evidence such as the Basement Tapes and other journals and videos contradicted them.
  3. The aftermath — the long recovery of survivors and families, the town's grief and denial, and the way Columbine became a template referenced in later school shootings.

How Cullen's reporting challenges common myths

Common belief Cullen's counter-argument
Harris and Klebold were bullied outcasts seeking revenge They had friends and social lives; the attack was planned as a larger bombing, not a spontaneous revenge spree
They targeted jocks and Christians Victims were largely random; the bombs were meant to kill indiscriminately
Cassie Bernall was shot for saying she believed in God Cullen's reporting questions whether that exchange occurred as widely told
They were part of a organized "Trench Coat Mafia" The group was loosely social, not a coordinated conspiracy behind the attack
Klebold was an equal partner in the killing Cullen casts him as a depressed follower rather than the planner

Relationship to Cullen's other work

Columbine is the book that established Cullen's approach to mass-shooting reporting. His later Parkland applies a similar narrative-nonfiction method to the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and to the student-led activism that followed. Readers interested in how Cullen handles a later shooting and its political aftermath can treat Parkland as a companion rather than a sequel—same authorial method, different event and different cast.

Cullen's site also lists an upcoming book, Don't Fall in Love: The Secret Lives of Two Gay Soldiers Hiding in Plain Sight, described as coming May 4, 2027, which moves into LGBT military history and away from the school-shooting subject matter.

Deciding whether to read it

Choose Columbine if you want:

  • A single, deeply reported narrative that tries to correct the popular record of the 1999 attack.
  • A true-crime read focused on the perpetrators' psychology and the failure of warning signs.
  • Context for how Columbine shaped later coverage of school shootings, including Parkland.

Look elsewhere if you want:

  • A survivor's firsthand memoir or a family member's account.
  • A strict policy or gun-control argument—Columbine is narrative-driven, not advocacy-driven.
  • A neutral, multi-perspective oral history; Cullen's book is interpretive and advances a specific thesis.

The book is available through Cullen's own site, which links to a purchase page for Columbine.