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. NEITHER ME OR YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT LIONEL IS GOING THROUGH, SO IT'S BETTER TO ONLY SYMPATHISE AND NOT GIVE YOUR OWN OPINIONS. A side to the story we rarely get to hear when the infamy of someone's crimes overshadows who they were and the people that loved them. He can speculate; he can point a finger at this situation or that situation; he can look inward and berate himself for all his failings as a parent.

At first he seems to attribute some blame to Jeffery Dahmer's mother and her mental health issues, but later suggests the problem was due to medications prescribed during the pregnancy. His descriptions of his own childhood pyromania are pretty amazing, as are his expressions of sad, mild sympathy for his son. 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. Partly because one always wants to find answers, even when the formulated questions are so impossible. He provides a unique perspective on the events that unfolded and offers a heartfelt exploration of the complexities of family, mental illness, and the devastating impact of Jeffrey's actions.While I don't feel I learned much more about Jeffrey Dahmer, seeing a new perspective of his life was highly interesting and extremely sad.

NOTE- TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ON THIS BOOK, I'D POLITELY REQUEST YOU TO STOP, BECAUSE THIS IS NOT FICTION.

Mentally ill mother, no job or income of her own) BUT, Lionel had the job, money, and means to leave the marriage. Dahmer and his wife Shari received support from Theresa Smith, sister of victim Eddie Smith, who is mentioned in the acknowledgments.

He delves into his own feelings of guilt and responsibility, and ultimately seeks to understand what led Jeffrey down such a dark path. So… maybe if the theory of evolution had not poisoned Jeff’s mind to the extent where he thought human life was cheap and worthless, he wouldn’t have killed all those men.But as we both separately realized, even this light, generally relaxing activity, so common among ordinary people at the end of the working day, was now filled with extreme and unavoidable tension for us. Lionel, however, isn't happy with the "perfect storm" scenario, which is admittedly vague and non-specific. There were flashes of attempted sincerity, but overall I felt he wanted me to think him a hero and was manipulating the book even to the point of confessing his own arson and his high-school bombing that had not been discovered so that I would approve of him. He was sued by two victims' families for using their names in the book without obtaining prior consent.

Jeff had hit bottom as a son, absolute bottom, and I could feel that he was taking me down with him, dragging me into the utter chaos that he had made of his life, and doing it publicly. Dahmer questions himself if he should have known what his son was up to and tries to figure out if there were signs in Jeffreys childhood that he was disturbed. WE HAVE MULTIPLE OPTIONS IN COLOR OF LEATHER RED, GREEN, BLUE, MAGENTA, TAN, DEEP BROWN, BLACK WITH DIFFERENT COLOR LABELS. Throughout the book, we sense the immense feeling of guilt Lionel Dahmer feels that he somehow through his own genes and faulty parenting contributed to what his son became, and through this alone are given a glimpse into the suffering the Dahmer family went through.Lionel Dahmer shares his and his son's tragic and sad story and provides some theories on why his son came to be a pedophile and necrophiliac monster, you could sense while you're reading the book that he's in unbelievable mental anguish, guilt ridden, blaming him self for it and his wife and struggling to make sense of what happened and trying to rationalize it.