Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth

by Stephen Singular, Joyce Singular Narrated by Tom Taylorson

Overview

On July 20, 2012, twelve people were killed and seventy wounded at a mass shooting in a movie theater in Colorado. In 1999, twelve kids and one teacher at Columbine High School were murdered by two students. In 2012, twenty children and seven adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. Thirty-two were killed at Virginia Tech. Twelve killed at the Washington Navy Yard. In May 2014, after posting a YouTube video of “retribution” and lamenting a life of “loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires,” a lone gunman killed six and wounded seven in Isla Vista. All of these acts of violence were committed by young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty.

Mass violence committed by young people is now an epidemic. In the first fourteen school days of 2014, there were seven school shootings, compared to twenty-eight school shootings in all of 2013. The reasons behind this escalating violence, and the cultural forces that have impugned a generation, is the subject of this important new book.

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Singular has often examined violence in America in his critically acclaimed books. Here he has teamed with his wife, Joyce, for their most important work yet-one that investigates why America keeps producing twentysomething mass killers. Their reporting has produced the most comprehensive look at the Aurora shooting yet and draws upon the one group left out of the discussion of violence in America: the twentysomethings themselves.

While following the legal proceedings in the Aurora shooting, The Spiral Notebook is full of interviews with Generation Z, a group dogged by big pharma and antidepressants and ADHD drugs, by a doomsday/apocalyptic mentality present since birth, and by an entertainment industry that has turned violence into parlor games.

Provocative and eye-opening, The Spiral Notebook is a glimpse into the forces that are shaping the future of American youth, an entire generation bathed in the violence committed by their peers.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/11/2015
The Singulars, a married couple, had a difficult conversation with their own 18-year-old son that raised concerns about the current generation of young men and women and led to this attempt to provide some way of understanding mass killers, specifically James Holmes, a former neuroscience grad student who shot up a Colorado movie theater in July 2012, killing people and wounding 58. The authors’ goal is to explore “a new form of American terrorism,” and thereby benefit “parents, educators, politicians, those in the media, and citizens young and old.” But instead of memorable or new insights, they provide less than profound commentary on the usual suspects—the easy availability of firearms, unrelenting exposure to violence at an early age through popular culture, alienation. The quotes from Millenials that they sprinkle throughout the book, in an effort to make that demographic’s voices heard, are often banal, and many readers will be uncomfortable at the categorization of “the mass shooting epidemic” as a “very loud and misdirected call from young people for change.” (July)

From the Publisher

Praise for The Spiral Notebook

"The Singulars are able and enthusiastic reporters, providing detailed depictions of the event, the lead–up to it, the emergency response, and then, to their frustration, a judicial process assiduously withheld from the prying eyes of the media."—Brooklyn Rail

"The Singulars offer a harrowing look at the crime and the courtroom drama. They explore the complex legal battles, particularly over the issue of Holmes' sanity and a spiral notebook that might hold the key to determining his state of mind. . . This is a compelling look at gun control, mental–health treatment, and the underlying social issues that contribute to rising violence, especially that committed by young men, in our nation."—Booklist Starred Review

"[A] disturbing yet fascinating treatise on the impacts of growing up in a world that previous generations would barely recognize....Tragic, gripping, and authentic, this book deserves a wide audience."—Kirkus Starred Review

Praise for Talked to Death

"The book works at every level, from melodrama to murder mystery to sociology. Singular has much to tell us here, and all of it is disturbing." —Philadelphia Inquirer

"Mr. Singular offers a microcosm lesson in the workings of a violently racist mind. . . It is the story of how broadcast communications is evolving in our era and what it has cost us." —New York Times

"A chilling examination of American–born right–wing terrorism." —Chicago Tribune

Praise for Presumed Guilty: An Investigation into the JonBenet Ramsey Case, the Media, and the Culture of Pornography

"Veteran crime journalist Singular offers an original perspective on the sadly epochal killing of JonBenet Ramsey. . . He focuses on the carnivorous mode of the mass media, particularly their lurid, immediate indictment of the Ramsey parents. Singular's perceptive exploration of the near–universal call for the Ramseys' heads reveals the gritty power struggles and class schisms that underlie the shiny, comforting facade of the Boulder region. Unlike his dirt–chasing peers, he gives nuanced attention to an unsettling aspect of the case that he considers overlooked yet central: the gray area in which the mainstreamed commodification of children's sexuality collides with the abuse of child pornography. . . Without fully lighting the dark corners of an unappealing realm, Singular has produced a balanced, detailed, thoughtful consideration of an incident usually reduced to cultural dissonance." —Kirkus Reviews

"The best writing about the Colorado murder case." —USA Today

"Novel, interesting, and a great read. . . Presumed Guilty opens the Ramsey case to a larger phenomenon [and] a shocking, disturbing aspect of American life." —The New York Post

"Presumed Guilty is as close to the truth as we'll ever get in this baffling case." —The Arizona Daily Star

Library Journal

05/15/2015
Veteran Denver crime writers Stephen (Presumed Guilty; When Men Become Gods) and Joyce take on another high-profile case, the Aurora Theater shootings. In 2012, on opening night of The Dark Knight Rises, James Holmes, appearing as Batman character the Joker, burst into an Aurora, CO, theater and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 58. What prompted Holmes, a brilliant former PhD student in neuroscience, to commit this massacre? The authors attempt to address this intriguing question but can't completely succeed because the spiral notebook, the journal Holmes had mailed to his psychiatrist, has been suppressed, preventing access to key insights. Unable to explore Holmes's psychological history, the authors instead focus on sociological phenomena contributing to "the epidemic of mass violence committed by American youth." They query their college-age son for understanding into such brutality. He asserts that destructive thoughts are frequent among his peers. Violent video games, ready availability of firearms, and a militaristic culture all contribute to the escalation in mass murders, the authors maintain, advocating gun control legislation and, surprisingly, training in yoga and mindfulness techniques as potential solutions. VERDICT This title will be of interest to lay readers who are fascinated by works such as Matthew Lysiak's Newtown.—Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2015-04-16
An investigation into the plague of violence engulfing a generation of American youth. When Stephen Singular (The Wichita Divide: The Murder of Dr. George Tiller and the Battle over Abortion, 2011, etc.) and his wife, Joyce, set out to write a book about James Holmes, who in 2012, walked into an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater where he killed 12 people and wounded another 58, they had no idea how little information about the case would be available to them. But they used the lack of accessible material as a starting point, with Aurora as the ever present backdrop rather than the sole subject. The spiral notebook of the title, a diary kept by Holmes, was presumed to hold the reasons behind the attack, but a court order kept it sealed from the public. With Holmes' motives obscured, the Singulars went in search of answers by exploring the nationwide epidemic of mass shootings. They spent time talking to their own 20-something son before embarking on a quest to engage with millennials in conversations about the tragic commonality of school shootings and other violent acts. The result is a disturbing yet fascinating treatise on the impacts of growing up in a world that previous generations would barely recognize. While violent video games get their due, the authors also pinpoint widely prescribed drugs, the pressures of social media, a world at war, and more. What makes this book special is that for every theory they present, the Singulars reference not only experts in psychology, sociology, crime, and other fields, but also 20-somethings, whose opinions seem at once benign in their simplicity and also imbued with the ability to shatter the worlds of their peers. These acts may never be fully understood, but this work certainly helps the process along. Tragic, gripping, and authentic, this book deserves a wide audience.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169579390
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	06/09/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

People my age aren’t taught anything about how to deal with their emotions. They don’t have any background for this and many don’t have any grounding in morality or spirituality. A lot of males of my generation have been raised without fathers. They try to act as if this doesn’t bother or affect them, but it does. They’re insecure about it, but never talk about that. They don’t have male role models who can show them how to behave not just physically, but emotionally. Or their fathers are so caught up in their work that they never take the time to do this. How do you deal with anger or fear when it comes up inside of you? How do you manage yourself when something deeply upsets or hurts you? If you don’t have a parent, especially one of your own gender, to look to for this kind of guidance, it makes it doubly hard to grow up. In the absence of these role models, what do you have? Action characters in video games and movies.

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