Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314532 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 284 pages

Synopsis
Presents the unvarnished facts about growing up as an alienated teenager in America today On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two seniors at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, walked into their school and shot to death twelve students and one teacher and wounded many others. It was the worst single act of murder at a school in U.S. history. Few people knew Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris better than Brooks Brown. Brown and Klebold were best friends in primary school and years later, at Columbine, Brown was privy to some of Harris and Klebold's darkest fantasies and most troubling revelations. After the shootings, Brown was even accused by the police of having been in on the massacre - simply because he had been friends with the killers. Now, for the first time, Brown, with journalist Rob Merritt, gets to tell his full version of the story. He describes the warning signs that were missed or ignored and the evidence that was kept hidden from the public after the murders.

He takes on those who say that rock music or video games caused Klebold and Harris to kill their classmates and explores what it might have been that pushed these two young men, from supposedly stable families, to harbour such violent and apocalyptic dreams. Shocking as well as inspirational and insightful, NO EASY ANSWERS is an authentic wake-up call for all the psychologists, authorities, parents and law enforcement personnel who have attempted to understand the murders at Columbine High School. As the title suggests, the book offers no easy answers, but instead presents the unvarnished facts about growing up as an alienated teenager in America today.

Customer Reviews

Interesting diagnosis of what's wrong in American society
Brooks Brown offers an honest account of his experience of having been close friends of the Columbine killers, on being a teenager in a middle America that doesn't give a damn about the kids, and where Christianity is skewed.

This book throws up important questions without being young, and about how the adult world can fail the kids in every respect. It's a biography, a crime assessment and a philosophical book rolled into one. A good and easy read.

A book detailing the Columbine massacre, from the inside!
Brooks Brown was a friend of the two perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, which took place on 20th April 1999. He knew the two during their informative years and suffered from bullying along side them in the halls of the schools where jocks ruled and nerds suffered.

He spoke to one of the two killers minutes before the shooting rampage began (he had suffered a death threat from the same guy not too long before)!

He tries to fathom and explain, with hindsight and the subsequent evidence, exactly what made his boyhood friend into a cold blooded murderer.

I'm from the UK and have, in fact, never visited the United States of America but this didn't detract as I could relate to the school culture described to that within some British schools I've experienced.

I found that the book was 'one of those' that I just didn't want to put down. I must admit, for me, the intriguing factors were the things like the revenge night time raids of the killers, Eric and Dylan, against their tormentors and the details about the violent computer game levels programmed by Eric, the comments made on his website against Brooks, the trench coat mafia etc.

All of the, somewhat, sinister aspects of Eric's life before the atrocity made fascinating reading. I didn't necessary agree with all of the points Brooks made or that I was totally convinced about his motives for writing the book (I really do hope that he was/is sincere).

The one thing that I was sure about after completing this was that I certainly did, thoroughly, enjoy reading it.

Interesting insights from one who personally knew the killers
This book is an interesting first hand account of a man who personally knew the killers, and was the last person to speak with them before they carried out their atrocities.

The book begins with Brown recalling the day of the killings. As he waited outside the school gates, his two friends approached him, and advised him to leave. Seconds later, his friends began opening fire on students, and he ran for cover. There are touching, harrowing accounts of how he frantically searched for his brother and his school friends, some of whom were later found dead.

Brown then tells us the story of his association with the two killers. Dylan Klebold was a childhood friend, whilst Eric was a recent friend he knew through Dylan. The killers later committed suicide. There is a touching moment late in the book when Brown recalls playing computer games with Klebold, and states whenever he plays computer games now, he often wonders what Klebold would have thought of it.

Brown also tells of how there were warning signs of Eric's violent temper that the authorities ignored. One day after an argument, Eric vandalised Brown's car, and as tempers escalated, Eric began placing death threats against Brown on his website. Complaints were made to the police, but no decisive action was taken.

Brown attacks the police on several fronts. Firstly, because they implicated him as an accomplice in the massacre, leading to considerable stress on him and his family. He was eventually cleared, but without an apology. The second reason for his attacks on the police is their failure to take Eric's murderous threats on his website seriously, despite the Brown family's constant warnings. Brown suggests that had they done so, and taken Eric into custody, the attack may never have occurred.

Brown also attacks the culture of his high school. He argues that cruel, violent bullying was routine, most of it carried out by school athletes. He argues that the teaching staff (many of them former athletes) refused to crack down on this due to favouritism. Brown states that this blatant neglect considerably fuelled Eric and Dylan's rage. Brown scoffs at the attempts of the school authorities to present pre-massacre Columbine as an idyllic place.

By contrast, Brown is very kind to the media. He argues that in the days after the massacre when he was being implicated as an accomplice by the police, the media were the only outlet he had for setting the record straight and he was/is grateful for this. He also mentions how he ended up doing work for Michael Moore on the film "Bowling for Columbine".

Perhaps Brown's most controversial claim is that the massacre was largely due to Eric and Dylan's frustration with wider society, rather than clinical explanations which feature and Eric's/Dylan's mind set, or legal explanations which focus on the availability of hand guns.

The book is a useful companion to other books about the massacre, as this is the only book written by someone who actually knew the killers. This therefore provides a fascinating view into the world of the killers.