A Father's Story

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I vaguely knew that the whole affair was wrapped up in sexuality somehow, but remember mostly the mechanics of its concealment—notably, Dahmer’s freezer, ultimately impounded by police, as seen on television. It is a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of family, mental illness, and the complexities of human nature.

Looking at all the baby and boyhood photos of Jeffrey, it wasn't hard to sympathize for the potential that was lost in Jeffrey himself. But if there was any hope that the reader might gain any insight into his mental makeup by reading this memoir, by the man who should have known him better than any other, it is quickly dashed. And the outcome was still a single man taking many lives and shattering so many others in the process of dissolving his own loneliness.

Each year, I'd dreaded moving up to the next grade, even when that move would not mean any change in school buildings, and despite the fact that I would still be surrounded by children I already knew.

Reading this book, I couldn't fathom what ring of hell Lionel Dahmer existed in (and probably still exists) as he grappled with the reality of his son, and the dark choices that son made. The father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer describes his shock at hearing the news of his son's crimes, his entry into a world of complete denial, and how, during Jeffrey's trial, he placed himself in his son's shoes. Jonathan Kirsch wrote in his review for the Los Angeles Times: "'A Father's Story' is really more about Lionel Dahmer than his son, a heartfelt effort at self-analysis and self-revelation by a bewildered father forced to accept that his son is a serial murderer: Where did I go wrong? While Lionel seemed slightly untrustworthy or hypocritical at times, he provided a perspective on Jeffrey that I had never really heard before.

The sadness and the inescapable reality of a book like this is that Dahmer, like the rest of us, will never really know what made his son do what he did. I was shocked to find Lionel Dahmer's writing so compulsively readable, well-written, and hauntingly open. But, I believe that you all can relate to it, at least the initial few chapters, they were very day-to-day life events that me and you usually go through.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. But, looking at the world around us, it is important to understand, or even try to understand what lies beneath all this. Lionel is withering about his inability to see what he thinks was in front of his eyes, the depth of Jeff’s problems, his social withdrawal, his teenage alcoholism – no friends, no girlfriends, no interests, no sports, no music, a failure at everything he turned his hand to. And to a lesser extent, we are get a sense of the victims and their families, but very rarely do we ever hear from the family members of the killers and what they must go through as they are often turned into pariahs for what their children/siblings did.Lionel Dahmer bravely confesses his own early experiments with perversity, a long stint as a pyromaniac culminating in almost burning down a neighbors garage, attempting to hypnotize a girl when he was thirteen in the hopes of "having [his] way with her" and his own dissociative personality that was a lesser version of what developed in his son. Joyce, in a later interview, was shocked at the things Lionel said about her and she said to Stone Phillips in the interview on youtube that the things in the book were false. They added another sibling that they were paying more attention to because he was colic and let's be honest he was the best kid so they're going to give him more attention where as Jeffrey was odd so they probably stay clear of him.

It's not just the serial killings that have marked Jeffrey Dahmer's complex personality, and I must say: there is no excuse to harm, abuse, and kill a human. what's unexpected is the candor, humility, and thoughtfulness of his account, and the little ways in which its genuine strangeness bypasses "shock value.Hoever, Dahmer should be commended for avoiding sensationalism and trying to capitalize off his son's crimes. A Father's Story is clearly Lionel Dahmer's attempt to understand his son's evolution into one of the world's most renowned serial killers with particular emphasis on his personal role. Lionel Dahmer graduated from University of Wisconsin in 1959, in 1962 he finished Marquette University, receiving Master of Science. DOES contain adult theme(cannibalism, pedophilia, alcohol abuse, drug overdose, rape, depression, suicide, anxiety)at least as much as Lionel could describe through his eyes. Dahmer's story is terrifying precisely because his blindness to his son's insanity was inseparable from his love for him.