The Making of a School Shooter
The alarming subject of my ground-breaking novel is the most severe repercussion of bullying. This story needs to be told. How do normal children become deranged killers as adolescents?
Ravi Singh, a highly intelligent, sensitive, teenaged boy living in an average North American suburb, is persecuted in school, on the street and at home. His development, or rather disintegration, is set against the backdrop of typical high school life. Ever present are the harsh realities of an intolerant culture. Ravi is alienated not only because of his Pakistani heritage, but also due to an orientation difference, a result of his high I.Q. A scapegoat in a merciless milieu, friendless and addicted to alcohol, his only escape, he acts out in school and ends up expelled as well as banished from his family. A sympathetic teacher and a guidance counsellor are powerless to stop his descent into depression and, ultimately, depravity. He enters a treatment facility for addiction and seems to be making progress until a series of ill-fated events lead him to abandon any attempts to reform. A need to belong draws him naively into a dangerous gang which nurtures his anger and provides him with the impetus to retaliate. When his rage finally erupts, it comes as a mystical revelation, a delusional solution to his and the world's problems. For Ravi, his rampage is cathartic, an act of justice, but to others it is traumatizing, an incomprehensible example of the youth violence which plagues our society.
Ravi's sad story is set against a backdrop of a lighter nature, the lives of three other teenagers. Sean and Janis are entertaining if not likeable, and the studious Fiona is the voice of reason and finally a champion of justice. Amid parties, the prom, dating and gossip, at school, at home and at the mall, they inadvertently contribute to the book's harrowing climax.
The reader always has a sense that the tragedy could have been averted if the teens and adults, school administrators, teachers and parents, had thought and acted differently. This is a dramatic story about high school students adrift in today's high-tech, materialistic culture. It demonstrates the catastrophic effects of a pervading lack of tolerance and empathy, a moral vacuum. Ravi's Revenge is an exciting and important contribution to YA literature which will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.
