Pros: This book was written shortly after the murders and then updated in 2020, giving it the benefits of both immediacy and hindsight in its analysis. I knew that I would finally learn even more about the man who had held my curiosity for the past six months. Laing argued in the 70s that people chose to be mad as a logical response to an impossible situation in their life.

But if you’re discerning and have some hand in counseling or psychology, this might be something that could benefit you. I found out that after this book was published that Joyce Dahmer, Jeffrey’s mother, interpreted it as a direct attempt to blame her, the mother.At sometimes the pacing feels a little off and I also feel as if the author brushed over a few things that I would have liked to hear more on (what Milwaukee Police was going to do to further prevent any more terrible mistakes). There was always a darkness about him': My Friend Dahmer author John Backderf on growing up with a serial killer".

Which still makes for a good story, it's just that the title and back cover synopsis is a bit misleading. Even when Jeffrey gets a prison sentence for sexually abusing a 14 year old boy, Lionel remains doggedly optimistic – this will be the short sharp shock he needed. I found myself getting carried away with Dahmer's past because I felt there just had to be an explanation. A Father's Story cannot claim to have discovered the ultimate solution to the enigma of either the criminal or his deeds. In 2021, My Friend Dahmer was one of 22 books removed from libraries in Texas's Leander Independent School District [29] "as part of an initiative to prohibit "inappropriate" books in their learning institutions.Throughout the book Lionel needs to find a narrative about his son that he can live with, one that he can accept, one that resonates. It's hard enough to wrap one's head around the atrocity known as serial murder, now imagine that that the serial murderer is your son. He says very firmly that all this shoving the responsibility onto this person or that person or alcohol or drugs, it’s all bullshit. One night in July 1991, two policemen saw a man running handcuffed from the apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer.

The Goodreads description adds: “On July 23, 1991, Milwaukee chemist Lionel Dahmer discovered – along with the rest of the world – that his son was a murderer who, over a period of many years, had carried out some of the most ghastly crimes ever committed in the United States.si alguien tan aparentemente mediocre como Jeffrey Dahmer puede ser tan peligroso, ¿qué hay de los demás que nos rodean? Don't get me wrong, Schwartz does an impeccable job with covering the police, media, and society's reaction and interpretation of the murders. Politicians and the media tell us that people who take drugs, including alcohol or nicotine, cannot help themselves. For a lot of people, MAD is saying oh, well, they couldn't help themselves, they have no responsibility. The only thing that I cringed at is the author’s nettlesome partiality for the policemen who were said to be incompetent in their job because they missed the fact that the man they were supposed to take over to the authority turned out to be Dahmer’s victim.