NewsBite

Columbine High School Shooter Dylan Klebold’s mum, Susan, set to write a memoir

THE mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold is planning a memoir describing the “indescribable grief and shame” she lives with.

27/02/2004 PIRATE: UNDATED : Columbine High School student Dylan Klebold, involved in the killings of 12 students and a teacher at the high school, yells into the camera in undated video he made as a school project with friend Harris. USA / Crime / Massacre / Murder / Shooting
27/02/2004 PIRATE: UNDATED : Columbine High School student Dylan Klebold, involved in the killings of 12 students and a teacher at the high school, yells into the camera in undated video he made as a school project with friend Harris. USA / Crime / Massacre / Murder / Shooting

THE mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold is planning a memoir in which she will confront the “indescribable grief and shame” she has lived with since the 1999 tragedy.

Crown Publishers said that it had acquired a book by Susan Klebold, saying she was compelled to share her story after the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and other schools.

That day ... Columbine High School students react at a triage scene near the school in Littleton, Colorado. Picture: AP Photo/RockyMountainNews.
That day ... Columbine High School students react at a triage scene near the school in Littleton, Colorado. Picture: AP Photo/RockyMountainNews.

Prior to the Sandy Hook shooting where Adam lanza gunned down 20 students and six teaching staff, columbine was America’s worst school shooting.

The book is untitled and has no release date. Ms Klebold will donate any author profits to mental health research and charitable organisations.

Dylan Klebold and fellow student Eric Harris killed 13 at the Colorado school before killing themselves.

Fellow gunman ... Eric Harris along with Dylan Klebold shot students and a teacher dead in a massacre at Columbine High School before killing themselves. Picture: Supplied.
Fellow gunman ... Eric Harris along with Dylan Klebold shot students and a teacher dead in a massacre at Columbine High School before killing themselves. Picture: Supplied.

Susan Klebold has previously described her feelings in an essay for Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine and in interviews for Andrew Solomon’s book Far from the Tree.

Ms Klebold and her husband Tom have spoken very little about their son publicly, however the couple did not change their names nor move away from Colorado.

“While I perceived myself to be a victim of the tragedy, I didn’t have the comfort of being perceived that way by most of the community,” Ms Klebold told O Magazine in 2009.

“I can never decide whether it’s worse to think your child was hardwired to be like this and that you couldn’t have done anything, or to think he was a good person and something set this off in him,” she said in Far from the Tree.

Horror day ... A police officer helps a wounded student at the scene near the Columbine High School in Littleton, Denver Colorado on April 20, 1999. Picture: AP/George Kochaniec/RockyMountainNews.
Horror day ... A police officer helps a wounded student at the scene near the Columbine High School in Littleton, Denver Colorado on April 20, 1999. Picture: AP/George Kochaniec/RockyMountainNews.

Lionel Shriver wrote the best-selling book We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2003 which was a fictionalised story from the perspective of a mother whose son had orchestrated a similar high school massacre to Columbine. The book was later turned into a film starring Tilda Swinton.

Nature versus nurture debate ... Eva (Tilda Swinton, left) and son Kevin (Rocky Duer) in a scene from Lynne Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin. Picture: Supplied.
Nature versus nurture debate ... Eva (Tilda Swinton, left) and son Kevin (Rocky Duer) in a scene from Lynne Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin. Picture: Supplied.

Originally published as Columbine High School Shooter Dylan Klebold’s mum, Susan, set to write a memoir

Original URL: https://www.themercury.com.au/columbine-high-school-shooter-dylan-klebolds-mum-susan-set-to-write-a-memoir/news-story/69463f068aaf039ba5b1918a1402f9f8