Event Description:
This time it was different. The uprising had begun. When Dave Cullen, author of the New York Times bestseller Columbine, went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the wake of the shootings, he saw something radically different from what he had witnessed anywhere else in his twenty years following the mass shootings epidemic. A handful of remarkable survivors—victims refusing victimhood—were calling out Adult America for letting kids die. They seized control of their story, galvanized a nation, and built a movement to capture its energy at lightning speed. Parkland (Harper; February 2019; $26.99), Cullen’s intimate account of the birth of this movement and its stunning metamorphosis through the spring, summer and fall, will be published on the first anniversary of the tragedy that ignited the revolt.
Two decades years ago, Dave Cullen was among the first to arrive at Columbine High, even before most of the SWAT teams went inside, and has worked closely with the FBI and elite psychologists ever since. While writing his definitive account of Columbine, he suffered two bouts of secondary PTSD and swore he would never plunge back into the aftermath. But Parkland felt like a revolution, the first substantial hope for road out of the school shooter era. But Parkland kids had a bolder vision: recognize their white, suburban privilege, and fuse their uprising with young black activists from Chicago, Berkley, Baltimore and every blighted neighborhood, to combat gun violence to kids of every color. Rather than taking us into the mind of the killer—who Cullen refuses to name—Parkland illuminates the colorful personalities of the charismatic Douglas activists, coping with AP exams, shattered friendships, prom, graduation, the musical Spring Awakening, and those horrible empty desks. They confess fear, panic and breakdowns to Cullen, but refuse to let grief deter them, devising ingenious new tactics to battle the NRA. With unrivaled access granted by these students and their families, Cullen pulls back the curtain with intimate portraits of quirky, playful organizers beyond the household names, for a backstage view of the memes men, the Peace Warriors, the dogtags with MLK’s 6 principles, the lightning strike on Tallahassee, the new freedom riders hopping on their grueling summer bus tour, the audacious march on DC, and a raft of never-reported scenes.
Dave Cullen is the author of New York Times Bestseller Columbine. He covered Parkland for Vanity Fair since the first weekend, following them around the country and into their rehearsals, their clandestine office and their homes. Cullen has also contributed to New York Times, BuzzFeed, Politico Magazine, Times of London, New Republic, Newsweek, Guardian, Washington Post, Daily Beast, Slate, Salon, The Millions, Lapham's Quarterly, and NPR's On The Media. Extensively researched and beautifully told, Parkland is a testament to change and a perceptive examination of this pivotal moment in American culture. |
