LISA BLACK: In my
recent release, Suffer the Children, my protagonists investigate a series of
deaths at a juvenile detention facility for violent or traumatized children. As
I don’t have children of my own this particular book required a great deal of
research, all of which fascinated me.
Eric Harris
was the son of an Air Force transport pilot. Dylan Klebold’s father was a
geophysicist. Each kid had a stay-at-home mom and a brother with whom they got
along fine. They lived in nice neighborhoods in quite comfortable homes. These
were teenage boys and yet had nothing but good things to say about their
families, even in private to each other (in their ‘basement tapes’ and
diaries). Obviously the source of their angst was not a miserable home life.
At school, they got good grades.
Teachers liked them. They were bullied by the jocks the way nerdy kids are
always bullied by the jocks, but apparently it didn’t rise above the standard
hallway shoving and derisive comments—nothing like the suicide-inducing, pervasive
social media campaigns waged by kids today. And Eric and Dylan had other nerdy
kids as friends who understood, friends they hung out with, made amateur movies
with, went to the prom with. They had a general list of people at school who,
on the day of the shooting, they did not
want to harm. They were not isolated.
Basically these were kids who
didn’t have a single damn thing to complain about. But in private, that’s all
they did. In private, the world was a horrible place, determined to crush them
under its asinine rule.
They had one relatively minor
run-in with the police, and impressed the officers so much that their probation
was cut short. Their written apologies were sincerely eloquent, and complete
lies. In private, they weren’t remotely
sorry.
So while we might criticize parents
who provided a son in (temporary) court-ordered anger management classes and
already on antidepressants with a supply of firearms, we can perhaps believe
that they were simply fooled by him in the way that the teachers, the cops, the
therapists were. Eric and Dylan fooled everyone. They were very good at it.
They planned the massacre for some
time and in great detail. People believe Eric was the ringleader, the one with
the military background, the gun nut, the one who had no roots in the
community, and Dylan the follower. But I believe Dylan was the loonier of the
two. He seemed to be clinically depressed and viewed the world as hellish. Both
of them veered between feeling like scum and feeling like ‘gods.’
So, why? I have no idea. But I think if they had never met each other then
maybe, maybe, they would have gotten
through life without actually killing anyone. Their personalities entwined in
all the wrong ways and encouraged all the worst parts of each, until they spiraled
into a well of violence from which no one could escape.
In the nearly 20 years since this
tragedy, do you think schoolkids are better prepared to stay safe in the event
of a school shooting?
(And a follow-up question from Lucy: How can we better tackle this horrific problem as a concerned society?)
About Suffer the Children: Maggie Gardiner, forensics expert for the Cleveland police department, and Jack Renner, a homicide detective with a killer secret, return in bestselling author Lisa Black’s new thriller as they confront the darkest threat yet to their careers—and their lives.
The body of fifteen-year-old Rachael Donahue—abandoned by society, raised in foster homes, and violently unapproachable—has been discovered at the bottom of a stairwell at Firebird, the secure facility for juvenile offenders in Cleveland.
But Rachael’s not the only resident at the center to come to a dead end. Firebird’s ten-year-old “wild child” has overdosed in the infirmary—back-to-back tragedies that appear to be terrible accidents. As a forensic investigator, Maggie knows appearances can be deceiving. And Jack knows all about deceit. That’s why they both suspect a cold-blooded murderer is carrying out a deadly agenda.
As Maggie’s ex-husband gets nearer to uncovering the secrets that Maggie and Jack must hide, it becomes increasingly harder for them to protect a new and vulnerable victim from a killer with unfathomable demons.
