Esquire's story on the NIU killer

[Rickys The Best]

Has anybody read the Esquire story, "Portrait of the school shooter as a young man"?

It was among the most disturbing, yet well-researched features I've read in a while. I couldn't put it down, but at the same time it was extremely hard to digest.

Thoughts?

 

[pallister]

Link?

 

[Smallpotatoes]

"Why do they only write about my kid when he commits mass murder?"

 

[Rickys The Best]

Link?

I couldn't find it on the Web site - it's in the latest issue, and the site still has the Mike Myers issue's content repurposed.
It's an extremely well-reported story. I'd actually be interested to know how the reporter got so much info so quickly. It's only been a few months since the shooting. Some of the descriptions (can't get myself to use color in such a drab story) had to have been assumed. And some of the pics were just chilling.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Agree

Has anybody read the Esquire story, "Portrait of the school shooter as a young man"?

It was among the most disturbing, yet well-researched features I've read in a while. I couldn't put it down, but at the same time it was extremely hard to digest.

Thoughts?

Agree with all of that. I do disagree with the cover line, which is: Can a school shooting ever be explained? This story comes damn close.

I don't think it explains why it happened anymore than any other stories I've read about school shooters. The story does do a great job of detailing the guy's travails throughout his life, and then the downward spiral in the final weeks before the shooting. But thousands of kids have had similar struggles over the years. Only a handful have become mass murderers. I don't know if the why is ever really answered. Probably because it never can be.

It doesn't look like the story's on their site yet.

But the research put into the story is amazing, especially in a fairly short amount of time.

 

[BYH]

"Why do they only write about my kid when he commits mass murder?"

Oh man, I'm ashamed to admit that made me laugh.

 

[OnTheRiver]

"Why do they only write about my kid when he commits mass murder?"

Oh man, I'm ashamed to admit that made me laugh.

I laughed, too. The line to hell forms to the right.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I thought it was excellent. And I thought it lived up to the cover billing inasmuch as it's clear the guy was horribly mentally ill, despite his friends pretending he wasn't. (And despite the serious and repeatedly diagnosed illness he had no trouble buying an arsenal for the killing.)

 

[slappy4428]

"Why do they only write about my kid when he commits mass murder?"

Oh man, I'm ashamed to admit that made me laugh.

I'm not... I giggled like hell...

 

[Football_Bat]

"They try just as hard as the varsity killers!"

 

[BrianGriffin]

That story (plus Colbert) filled up the time from Philly to Houston on a US Air flight with NO food. Not even ****ing peanuts.

 

[Armchair_QB]

"Why do they only write about my kid when he commits mass murder?"

 

[tonysoprano]

I'm fascinated. I'll read it. Oh ....these stories are often the best. I've said before - The piece on the Beslan Terror Siege is simply one of the best pieces of reporting I've ever come across. Not to mention a damn fine read.

 

[John]

I haven't gotten to it yet because I'm still reading the one about the guys tunneling out of prison.

Jones is my favorite Esquire writer, but the siege story was the best magazine writing I've ever read.

 

[BrianGriffin]

For the record. I agree that the story was outstanding. I just can't get over the no peanuts thing....

 

[Norman Stansfield]

For the record. I agree that the story was outstanding. I just can't get over the no peanuts thing....

That story is next on my to-do list.

And is NOT having a bag of eight or so peanuts on a plane REALLY so tough to take? I mean, seriously.

 

[Dickens Cider]

For the record. I agree that the story was outstanding. I just can't get over the no peanuts thing....

That story is next on my to-do list.

And is NOT having a bag of eight or so peanuts on a plane REALLY so tough to take? I mean, seriously.

What if the flight attendant made you stop watching porn? Some people feel that way about peanuts.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Read this one and the tunnel story back to back, and they're both very well done, which is what I've come to expect from Esquire. The "What It's Like .... To Be Photographed Nude" was quite captivating, too.

I don't know if the NIU story was better than the KIA funerals story Jones did a couple months back, but it's damn good.

 

[Pulitzer Wannabe]

I don't understand how he could possibly write the opening scene as vividly as he did. No one as with Kaczmierak, and then he killed himself. But the writer has him picking up a gun, putting it down, looking in the mirror, etc., like he was in the room with him. I don't get it - fabricated? Great story, but the opening seems to stretch the limits of nonfiction.

 

[BrianGriffin]

For the record. I agree that the story was outstanding. I just can't get over the no peanuts thing....

That story is next on my to-do list.

And is NOT having a bag of eight or so peanuts on a plane REALLY so tough to take? I mean, seriously.

I'm sure it's saving US Air a ton of fuel. It's going to save them from bankruptcy the same way that cutting your job is going to save newspapers.

But back to the story...

This is why journalism can be so important. We had this sort of superficial understanding of who this guy was and what happened. But when somebody digs beyond the superficial, the picture changes and I think it provides more than just good story telling for a reader. It helps us see who we are and who is around us. That's utility. That's a service we provide that I think would alter our culture, considerably, for the worse if it were lost.