Columbine

Central to Cullen’s text are the recreation of the attack itself and the attempt to locate answers for the reason or reasons the attack occurred.

Chapter 8, “Maximum Human Density,” recounts the blueprint for the attack, as Harris and Klebold envisioned it. Chapter 10, “Judgment,” offers a minute-by-minute account of the movements and actions of Harris and Klebold in the moments directly preceding the attack. The following Chapter, “Female Down,” is the first to chronicle actual shootings. The perspective of the media and law enforcement officials is outlined in Chapter 12, “The Perimeter,” and Chapter 13, “1 Bleeding to Death,” contains further actions by law enforcement. Chapter 52, “Quiet,” offers a recreation of the attack that is at least in part from the perspective of Harris and Klebold themselves. Interspersed through the book are, also, recountings of victims of Harris and Klebold; of especial note is Chapter 16, “The Boy in the Window,” which contains Patrick Ireland’s exit from the school building via a library window.

Past these moments, Cullen focuses on how Harris and Klebold were able to obtain the firearms they used in the shooting and the method by which they learned to make bombs (Harris downloaded and printed off a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook, a by-now infamous text that details how to stage attacks and construct weaponry.