EBOOK
Last Day on Earth
A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter
David VannSeries: Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction3
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About
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.
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.
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Reviews
"A carefully crafted account of a descent into fatal madness."
Kirkus Reviews
"I am not the ideal reader for this book but I became the ideal reader. I didn't think I could read essays about basketball because I do not play the game. I read it to hear Brian Doyle's voice, which is one of the most distinctive voices in nonfiction. I read it to learn, against my will, what a hook shot is, how to box someone out, and what a pick is. I read this book with the hope and the recog
Lee Gutkind, founding editor, Creative Nonfiction
"Vann's story, originally commissioned by Esquire magazine and winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction, is complicated, but he tells it with grace and clarity. Kazmierczak's inner life was bleak, to put it mildly. The word 'bleak,' though, has to be qualified. Vann's look at Kazmierczak is unflinching and careful; he presents exceedingly well-organiz
Max Winter, Boston Globe