Thirteen Minutes

The people of Price City, Missouri, were convinced "it couldn't happen here" just as the people of Newton, Connecticut; Littleton, Colorado; and Parkland, Florida, had once believed. But it did, amidst the political and social upheaval of the nation's worst pandemic in a century. What conditions led to one of the worst mass-casualty school shootings in American history? Thirteen Minutes: Death of an American High School is a fact-based fiction grounded within contemporary journalism. It describes the root causes of a painful American form of tragedy. At the heart of the story is a typical rural community, just the kind of place where these atrocities frequently occur. It is also about a town polarized by political and social strife exacerbated by the global pandemic. There are Price City's most powerful man and his son, both self-absorbed bullies whose actions have far-reaching and unintended consequences. It is also a tale about the social pecking order within a high school, where athletes and popular kids rule while those considered outsiders or loners are often targets of abuse. Most outsiders and loners suffer in silence. But sometimes they don't. School mass-casualty shootings have become an all-too-familiar and all-too-terrifying aspect of modern life. Thirteen Minutes: Death of an American High School serves as a cautionary tale that provides insight into the causes and effects of these uniquely American tragedies.

-- David W. Guth