‘Like Columbine! Viva Columbine!’ Abjection and the Representation of School Violence in Young Adult Fiction

Abstract

In this paper I will focus on fictional representations of school massacres in young adult books and what they might reveal about the ways in which the genre engages with cultural ideas of the (male) teenager. There are a number of young adult books which have school massacres as their theme but many of them are only in print overseas. I will discuss two young adult books that are currently in print in Australia: 'Big Mouth and Ugly Girl' by Joyce Carol Oates and 'Give a Boy a Gun' by Todd Strasser, both published in 2002.