Shooter

About Author

Walter Milton Myers was born into an impoverished family in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1937, although he spent most of his childhood in New York after his mother died when he was three years old and his father entrusted him to his first wife, Florence. Florence and her husband, Herbert Dean, adopted him. Florence, a native of New Franklin, Pennsylvania, via German emigration, raised him as her own in the Harlem neighborhood, which would inform most of his later work. He would later use the Dean family name as his writing career blossomed (Novak, 84). A speech impediment prompted the young Myers to begin collecting his thoughts in poems and short stories.

Book Summary

This book for teens is written more like a compilation of reports than it is like an actual book. At the very beginning, you know something serious has happened in one of the schools in Harrison County, but you are not quite sure what. The happenings are slowly revealed through interviews with two students, Cameron and Carla, and a few reports written by the police and doctors. These interviews appear to have been conducted about a year after the incident occurs.

Cameron is interviewed first to give his take on a shooting that occurred at Madison High School involving his friend, Len. It was speculated and reported by newspapers that Len and Cameron were in a group that was classified as a cult which in turn caused the shooting at the school (Nielsen, 23). Through the interviews, you come to find out what role both Cameron and Carla had to play in the school incident. Everything is summed up in the last portion of the book, as you get a glimpse into Len's mind by reading his diary Shooter is set at Madison High School, Harrison Co. A fatal shooting, also known as "the incident", has occurred. This is all the reader knows at the beginning of the novel. What actually occurred at Madison High School on the morning of April 22nd is left up to the reader to reconstruct from the variety of documents that compose the body of the novel. The first two items are interviews conducted with Cameron Porter, a 17-year old male and one of the few African Americans at the high school. Cameron is smart and upper class. His parents are self-absorbed in their focus on money and status. According to Cameron, his over-achieving father views him as failing to live up to his potential. When Cameron fails to make the basketball team, his father pulls strings and Cameron is placed on the team in lieu of a more skilled player. In retaliation the school's jocks",

Cameron's source of friends, turn against him. Ostracized by the jocks, Cameron is an open to Len Gray's offer of friendship. Carla Evans, the second interviewee, is a 17-year old white female. Troubled, a loner, and a victim of abuse, Carla is open to Len's offer of friendship and membership in "Ordo Saggitae" a group formed ...