On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives.
For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? These are the things she explores in A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
I’m liking
It’s hard to talk about ‘liking’ this book. It was both gruelling and also gripping and it was compelling reading. Central to Klebold’s narrative in this book is her explanation of how she has come to understand what happened and her son’s role in this. Parts of this book will strike fear into the hearts of parents everywhere because, by Klebod’s telling, he was a normal teenage boy and they were a normal family – not the monsters we might like to believe.
Klebod has some insightful thoughts about teenage depression and they’re worth filing away for those with children in the teen years (or who will one day be teens). In short – the signs are not always what you’d expect. She does not make excuses for her son in this book but she does point to some of the contributing factors that may have impacted on her son.
The book also chronicles some of what the Klebolds have experienced over the last 16 years and it’s the kind of stuff you wouldn’t wish on anyone. They’ve been vilified, financially ruined, lost relationships, lost a son and also had to live with the knowledge of what their son did. It’s hard stuff. Despite this, Klebold has moved forward and her strength is evident throughout the book.
The conclusion
I found this book utterly riveting but also profoundly unsettling. We’d all like to believe that Dylan Klebold was a monster and that the Klebods were terrible parents; because then this couldn’t happen to us and our children. Klebod’s telling is that this is not the case. They were engaged parents who earnestly sought to do the best for their children. And that’s a bit terrifying. Unsettling but well worth the read.
A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy By Sue Klebold – RRP $38.00.
This book was kindly provided for review purposes by W H Allen.
