The acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Sue Klebold, mother of one of the Columbine shooters, about living in the aftermath of Columbine.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 … 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 questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.
Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.
All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues.
— Washington Post, Best Memoirs of 2016
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Sue Klebold sums up her experience best when she says she parented the best she could the kid she thought she had. Reading A Mother’s Reckoning, it is impossible to say I would have done anything differently, and in fact, may not have been as good a mother as Sue seems to be.
What she has endured is beyond what anyone might imagine one could and still come out with a positive message on the other side. The Columbine tragedy is as multi-faceted as it is terrifying. To look at it from any one viewpoint is a disservice. It’s hard to reconcile the loss thirteen families face with the loss of the other two, Eric and Dylan, in particular, whose “mission,” if one can describe it as such, was self-destruction. Dylan is documented both by his mother and therapists as suicidal, something only uncovered in hindsight. There are countless other victims, people whose lives are forever changed by April 20, 1999—physically and emotionally. Sue’s account of raising Dylan does nothing to belittle that point.
I first read Dave Cullen’s Columbine, in preparation for reading Sue’s memoir. I felt that it would be unfair to hear only her side of things without understanding the forensic minutia: who, where, how, and why. That last one is the hardest to answer, and I don’t think anyone does a better job of it than Sue Klebold, whose son both was and wasn’t who she believed him to be. I expected the sort of excuses only a parent might make for their child. I also expected, particularly after reading Columbine, to see blame placed largely on Eric, a sociopathic, influential driving force in the planning and execution of the Columbine shooting. What Sue does more than anything is to pay homage to the boy Dylan was, while apologizing and empathizing with those affected by who he became in those final months.
Her account of parenting a teenage boy rings true. I know well the angst-y brooding that isolates young adults from their parents. Sometimes they become reclusive. Other times they act out. At a point, as a parent, you’re unable to see who your child is outside of the home, especially if that young adult doesn’t want you to know. Dylan became expert in ingratiating himself to authorities, and to eliciting the trust of his parents in the wake of a particularly problematic junior year of high school. He crafted the illusion that though he had been through some tough times, he was recovering, and what parent wouldn’t have wanted to believe that?
Having spent ten years working closely with an adolescent and adult inpatient mental health facility, I understand well the psychological contribution Dylan’s depression and Eric’s nihilistic rage might have had when planning, not a school shooting, but a failed school bombing. The two were as ill-fated as they were perfectly matched in that their personalities fed the worst in one another. That more people weren’t killed or injured is nothing short of a miracle considering what Dylan and Eric had set out to do.
Still, this was someone’s brother and someone’s sons. It is, I think, one of the greatest tragedies that parents can be blamed for the actions of their children, including in this case. The Klebolds were anti-violence, anti-gun, from not one but two religious factions—raising Dylan with the Jewish traditions that dispel any claims he might have been anti-Semitic. They involved their sons in sports and extracurricular activities, encouraged family time and community service, and seemingly demonstrated excellent moral character. Sue’s message is simple: if it could happen to us, it could happen to anyone. Reading her beautifully written, painfully exposing memoir, I believe her. She has since dedicated her life to brain health awareness and all proceeds from her book are donated to this cause. Highly recommended!
One morning on the way to work I heard that Terri Gross was going to interview
Sue Klebold about her book and I almost switched stations. I am so glad I didn’t. After listening to her, I bought the book that evening. I learned so much by reading this book. It’s absolutely amazing…and so painfully honest.
Klebold’s name is immediately recognizable and infamous, for it was her son Dylan Klebold, along with Eric Harris, who was responsible for the mass murder of a teacher and 12 students at Columbine before committing suicide themselves. Another 24 people were injured, many seriously. As a parent, I could only imagine the horror of hearing about the massacre, worrying that my child was dead or injured, and then finding out that my child was dead, but was also one of the perpetrators responsible for the horror. I don’t think any parent could bear that type of agony, especially one who was pretty much blindsided by her child’s involvement. To continue living in the community de estates by the massacre, seeing the families affected, the funerals, the devastation, feeling responsible while also having to Mourn the loss of her son.
Sue Klebold shares her story, her family’s destruction, the aftermath of the killings, her regrets and thoughts about how to identify and possibly avoid this type of event. She does so openly, responsibly, and with a clarity that I could never have found. Her love for her son rings throughout the book, but her consuming regret is also there.
It’s fascinating.
A heartbreaking, honest, and raw account from the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters. Equal parts devastating and terrifying, I still found itto be a compelling read, told with beautiful prose and unsparing images.
It’s almost like it never really happened…
I’m not really sure where to go with this. It was nothing like I expected.
First off, let’s just get the writing out of the way. The flow was good. The grammar, the syntax, the timeline… all good. But there just seemed to be something off about this book that I wasn’t expecting.
It seemed more like an inspirational read than a broad exploration of a true-to-self memoir. To be clear, I was expecting to read about Sue Klebold’s horrific journey through life as people spit at her in the post office, the grocery store, the bank. But it was none of that. Every other sentence was her expecting it, but for some reason, everyone was just “so nice to her and Tom (husband).”
To be honest, I really had a hard time buying those details, but there was more to the story that appeared to have an agenda. Sue’s son Dylan Klebold was one of two Columbine shooters, the other being Eric Harris. Even though she did cop to her son’s obvious evil agenda with nothing but selfish gratification in mind, even at the cost of other’s lives, she also wanted her readers to know that Dylan was a sweet, innocent boy who might or might not have experienced a moment of temporary insanity. At least, that’s the way I understood her monologues.
Then we started getting into the real reason the book was put out there, in my opinion. Although Sue made very little mention of Eric Harris, when she did, it was to subtly imply that he was the REAL monster and her son might or might not have been an unwitting accomplice. Even after she was exposed to the Basement Tapes, she still clung to the notion that Eric encouraged Dylan’s hateful diatribes.
It appears to me that this book was none other than a PR campaign to rebuild her public and professional image, at least that’s how I took it. I mean, how you can you explain someone who described all the people she met that day and in the following weeks after the massacre as kind, nurturing and understanding? I remember that day well and the only thing that went through my mind for years was “what was his home life like?” She certainly wouldn’t have gotten any sympathy from me (nor vulgarity), had I been local to the situation. I simply would have ignored her, at all costs. She never once mentioned being yelled at, spit at, confronted, assaulted or anything of the such, as if the community were so accepting of her, but not the Harris family. She made sure they were barely even mentioned in her book.
All in all, I view this book as an untruth, a lie by omission. I was expecting a broad tell-all, but rather got a “Jehovah’s Witness” version of her post-Columbine life.
I simply cannot recommend this book to anyone.
It’s been over 20 years now, but the shockwave from what happened at Columbine High School in 1999 still continues to ripple out far and wide. I’ve seen documentaries on the tragedy, but in all the time since, I never considered the effect the events of that day might inflict on those closest to the killers. However, I recently came across a TED talk from the author, and learned she had written a book. My first response was I didn’t even want to look at that last name on my bookshelf, so abhorrent is her son’s legacy, but after listening to her talk, I felt I had to learn more about her experience.
This book is extremely hard to read. The reader experiences Sue’s shock, horror, anger and confusion as she, her husband and other son learned what her youngest boy had taken part in at the school that morning. Referencing diary entries, she addresses the question of ‘How could you not have known?’ by providing her experience of raising her son, her regrets as a mother and the toxic relationship her boy formed with the other killer from the school that day, a friendship which she will forever regret that she allowed to develop.
The reader is left to make their own conclusions; anger, rage, sadness, sympathy. Sue would expect every response and she has experienced them all. Juxtaposed against her account is always the unending pain of those who lost loved ones or who were injured and traumatized from that day. I’ve since discovered that Sue has met with and developed a close relationship with some relatives of those killed that morning, including Rachel Scott’s mother and teacher Dave Sanders’ daughter. It is heartening to hear.
Sue has become a speaker and expert in suicide prevention, and proceeds from the book go towards organizations who specialize in that field.
A difficult read, but maybe a necessary one.
19 years ago Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and injured 24 others before they shot themselves. This story is from the point of view of his mother – Sue Klebold. In 2016, she wrote this story about the grief and heartache she has dealt with in the wake of what her son, Dylan, did. She claims she didn’t know what he was up to. That he was a loved child and she a hands on parent.
Since that fateful day, Sue has become an avocate for brain health, suicide, and children in distress. She hopes that her book, and her story will help other parents recognize when their children are in trouble to hopefully prevent one more child from doing what Dylan did.
I have mixed feelings about this book. First – I commend her for writing it. Last year I read a hefty book about Columbine, and leanred many things I never knew about the 1999 tragedy. We all thought the same thing – these kids were bullied loaners who decided to get revenge. It turns out, that wasn’t true. It was more likely mental illness that was the center of this tragedy and without help, the tragedy occured.
Second – I don’t think that Sue is being completely honest with herself. She makes a lot of excuses for Dylan in this book. In the beginning she talks about nothing but Dylan’s blame and that nothing will make him blamelss in all of this. But as the book goes along, she starts to make excuses for his behaviors and why he did what he did. Dylan’s Junior year was reaked with clues that he was in trouble. But Sue and her husband excused many of the behaviors as “boys will be boys” and that “he wouldn’t have gotten help even if we asked him to”.
I am trying not to judge too harshly because I am not in her shoes. I was not in Dylan’s house every day. I cannot say how I would have reacted myself if Dylan was my child. We all say we would have done things differently, but would we? We always want to portray our children at their best because we love them. But making excuses for their bad behavior is part of the problem. You cannot brush off a kid who gets arrested, and defaces school property, and is showing signs of depression. These are all things Dylan did during his junior year. He grades dropped. He stopped participating in activities. The clues were blaring. Yet nothing was done.
In fairness, 1999 was a different time than today, in the awareness of mental illness. In Columbine, a lot of people missed the clues. Not only his parents, but his friends, his school, his co-workers. He fooled them all.
I cannot recommend or not recommend this book. Did I gain more insight into the Columbine tragedy by reading it? No. But you may be interested to hear what Dylan Klebold’s mother has to say.