No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine [Paperback]

Rob Merritt (Author), Brooks Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1590560310 | ISBN-13: 978-1590560310

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 grade 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 harbor 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."If there is any solace to come out of a tragedy of the magnitude of the Columbine shooting, it is what lessons might be learned in its aftermath. With bravery, wit, and striking honesty, Brooks Brown and Rob Merritt allow us a glimpse into what led to that event, what happened afterward, and most importantly, why any community would be naive to think it might not happen to them, too. How thin is the line between a bully and a victim? Who is to blame, when a community is turned inside out? As No Easy Answers suggests, it may just be the community itself. And it offers up a question of that resonates after the last page is turned: What can you and I do to keep this from happening again? If you're a parent, read this with your child; if you're a teen, leave this on your parents' bedside table--and above all else, start the conversation too much of this world is unwilling to have." --Jodi Picoult, author of the New York Times #1 bestselling novel Nineteen Minutes

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The question of why Columbine seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 classmates and one teacher before killing themselves is personal for classmate Brown, who was friends with both boys. However, this search for an answer is unlikely to provide closure for either Brown or others concerned about preventing future acts of school violence. The author, who appeared on Oprah and other shows after the killing spree, writes conversationally, as if he were being questioned by a talk show host and asked to describe growing up with Klebold, why he thinks Harris told him to go home right before the shootings and what can be learned from the gruesome event. Interspersed between Brown's first person accounts of bullying and injustice at Columbine, which he regards as the motivating factors for the shootings, are third person interviews with his parents and others. Since much of the story of the event's aftermath is told from newspaper clippings and TV reports, there's little new here. Still, Brown's discussion of Harris's Web pages, where he made a death threat against Brown, and the police's failure to act on them, makes for chilling reading. The book bogs down when Brown details the actions of the local police and sheriff, who implied that Brown was a suspect even though they knew he and his family were mentioned as potential targets in Harris's journals. Too little time has elapsed since the shootings for Brown to have the perspective necessary to make this a definitive work, but readers interested in a close-up account of the tragedy will want to read this book. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

When Eric Harris walked up to Brooks Brown in the Columbine High School parking lot on April 20, 1999, and told him, "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home," Brown's life changed forever. Minutes later, Harris and Brown's close friend Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and a teacher. Brown immediately became the subject of rumor and innuendo, eventually being named as a "potential suspect" by the police. Besides the misery of being falsely associated with the murders, Brown endured unremitting guilt and confusion over having known Harris and Klebold well. Here Brooks tells his harrowing story, analyzing the Columbine murders along the way. Insisting that video games and rock music had nothing to do with the murders, he focuses instead on the horrific teasing and bullying rampant at Columbine. He insists that while Harris and Klebold were responsible for the deaths of 13 people, the school was responsible for making them into desperate, angry boys. Despite uber-hip slang and occasionally awkward phrasing, Brown's story is gripping and provocative. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Lantern Books (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590560310
• ISBN-13: 978-1590560310
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brooks Brown graduated from Columbine High School in 1999; No Easy Answers is his first book. Brooks worked and consulted on Michael Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine and is currently working on a documentary of his own. He lives in Littleton, Colorado.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raw, honest book, April 5, 2003

By 

Mike Johnston (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine (Paperback)

I'm a 46-year-old former high school teacher with no ties to Colorado or Columbine. I'm not a Columbine junkie--haven't read any other books on the subject and didn't know any more about it than any other American who watches and reads the news.

I read this book in three sittings in less than 24 hours. It's a compelling story written in plain, raw prose that makes no pretense to literary merit. I'm perfectly willing to believe that this isn't "the last word" on the subject, that it looks at things from only one perspective, and may even be somewhat self-serving.

But so what? What we need to reach understanding is direct, honest accounts from _different_ perspectives, and that's what I found here. Obviously, the author (who was involved in, and scarred by, the event) has been trying to work out his culpability, his feelings, and tell his story--genuinely searching for explanations and meaning--and this book is the fruit of his effort. The person he describes himself to have been will be familiar to most teachers, a part angry, part goofy punk who is both rebellious and thoughtful and bright.

He describes the toxic atmosphere of the school. Large high schools can be awful places--he compares it socially to a prison yard, something I have no trouble believing. The main interest of this book to readers, however, is Brooks's gradual discovery of what might be called the realities of adult politics--the inept, self-justifying Sheriff, the injustices perpetuated by a shocked community attempting to assign blame, the understandable desire of the authorities to make it all go away, the efforts of many interest groups to appropriate the event for their own purposes, and, eventually, the kids' rejection by hardened politicians who see it only as a small facet of a larger issue they've already made up their minds about. This is the disillusion we all face entering adulthood, but made brutally sudden and shocking for the author by the murders. He seems to have done a good job of handling it all in the aftermath--although the book describes a teenager, it's written from the perspective of an adult. In fact I hope Brown becomes a politician someday...it's clear that his values have been formed in the crucible of this experience.

I picked up this book on impulse, and it's a very quick read, but I'm glad I read it. I may even seek out other books on the subject now.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REQUIRED READING FOR LITTLETON COMMUNITY, November 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine (Paperback)

This book is a must read, but I expect that most people in the Littleton community will be so threatened by it, that not only will they not read it, but they will make it worth their while to condemn it. I implore the Littleton community to read this book with an open mind and an open heart.

I live in the Littleton community and have for several years. My children have graduated from school and have moved on with their lives. For those of you in the community who think that Brooks Brown is out of line, perhaps he has touched a nerve in you that you would prefer to go untapped. If you find yourself furious with Brown, it would behoove you to pull back and try to gain some insight as to why you are reacting this way. What you find may surprise you. After all, anger stems from fear.

What I am about to say is shocking, but it is fact.
A year after Columbine a 16 year old in the Littleton community
received a death threat while at school. The threat was from a
classmate. The classmate called the 16 year old's home. The
parent's were told that their 16 year old would die that very
day. The kid's car would blow up ( it was parked on school
grounds) and anyone within a 500 yard radius would be killed.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Dept. was called. The kid con-
fessed and was booked with a Class 6 felony.

There was no bomb. However, the lack of concern on the part of
the police was disturbing. They refused to search the boy's
home, even though the boy was known to brag about knowing how
to make pipe bombs. The Jeffco authorities were also informed
that the kid had brought a knife to school several times. Two
months later, the 16 year old received another threat. Again th
Jefferson County Police were disturbingly bored by it all.

Shocking, isn't it? By the way, the kid was put in the
Diversion Program and transferred to another Jeffco school.
The police could have prevented the killings at Columbine and a
year later they were no more interested in preventing another
one from happening. This I don't understand.

There are "no easy answers" as to why our culture in America is
so violent. One problem that does contribute is that adults simply do not listen to the children. We adutlts think we know
better because we are older. It's not too late to start listening
and we can begin by reading this book with an open mind and an
open heart. We owe at least that much to those children who died
that day at Columbine. We owe it to the children who survived
but were left with physical and or emotional scars. We owe it to
our children to protect them. Let's start by being willing to hear the truth, painful though it may be.

I applaud Brooks Brown for having the courage to speak up. I
applaud him for his efforts in seeking the truth. It's time for
the adults to follow his lead. Don't shy away from the truth. The
truth is the only path to genuine healing for this community.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Info you won't find anywhere else, December 31, 2007

By 

me (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine (Paperback)

What this book offers is a unique perspective that you will not get from the media or other parents who wrote books about their deceased children. Some are mad that Brooks Brown didn't offer a concrete solution to the shootings, therefore his motives for this book must be completely self-serving. I think that these one-star reviews are undeserved. The charges that Brooks wrote this book for the money are ridiculous, because it is almost impossible to make money from a book, unless you are as big as Stephen King. You will read that Brown believes that it would be wrong to place blame on one thing for what happened (such as music, video games or gun control, the "easy" answers), so he offers several events that combined led up to the tragedy: The police for ignoring the warning signs a year before the shootings, the staff at Columbine for ignoring the bullying, and the parents (Eric's especially) for not opening their eyes. There is also some hard-to-find information, such as what Eric's Doom levels were like, the stuff that was on his website, discussions of the basement tapes and what day-to-day interaction with the killers was like. This makes Brown's book different from all the others.

It is clear that Brown wants as much accurate information as possible to be available, as well as to defend himself against the false charges lobbed at him from the police department who knew that they had dropped the ball in preventing the attack. Yes, a lot of the book is about Brown's life, but it all ties into what led up to the shootings. I did not read anything that was extraneous or uninteresting. In fact, this book seems to have the most credibility of anything I've read about Columbine. There are a few books in existence that try to turn the victims into martyrs for their faith, when religion had nothing to do with the shootings. No Easy Answers is much more believable, because like life, the answer is not always wrapped up neatly with a little bow. Highly recommended.