Last day on earth
Subtitle: a portrait of the NIU school shooter
By: David Vann
Series: Association of writers and writing programs award for creative nonfiction
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 167
ISBN-13: 9780820338392
Subjects: Students; Youth and violence; Campus violence; School shootings; Mass murder; Northern Illinois University
Description: "On Valentine's Day 2008, Steve Kazmierczak killed five and wounded eighteen at Northern Illinois University, then killed himself. But he was an A student, a Deans' Award winner. How could this happen? CNN could not get the story. The Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and all others came up empty because Steve's friends and professors knew very little. He had reinvented himself in his final five years. But David Vann, investigating for Esquire, went back to Steve's high school and junior high friends, found a life perfectly shaped for mass murder, and gained full access to the entire 1,500 pages of the police files. The result: the most complete portrait we have of any school shooter. But Vann doesn't stop there. He recounts his own history with guns, contemplating a school shooting. This book is terrifying and true, a story you'll never forget"--Provided by publisher.