 | |
| Author | Lionel Dahmer |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company |
Publication date | March 1994 |
| Pages | 255 |
| ISBN | 978-0-688-12156-3 |
A Father's Story is a memoir written by Lionel Dahmer, father of American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The book was published in 1994 by William Morrow and Company.
Lionel Dahmer used most of the proceeds of the book to cover legal fees. He was sued by two victims' families for using their names in the book without obtaining prior consent. [1] He had also been previously sued by the family of victim Steven Hicks in 1992. They filed a wrongful death suit against Dahmer, his wife Shari Dahmer, and his former wife Joyce Flint, citing parental negligence as the cause for the claim. [2]
Dahmer donated the remaining portion of the proceeds to the victims' families. [3]
Dahmer and his wife Shari received support from Theresa Smith, sister of victim Eddie Smith, who is mentioned in the acknowledgments. [4] "If anyone has a right to write a book, it's them [Jeffrey's parents] and the families [of the victims]. If that was my brother and my brother killed their son, I would not abandon my brother," Smith said. [5]
In July 1991, research chemist Lionel Dahmer was informed by the Milwaukee Police Department that they were investigating a homicide involving his son Jeffrey. Dahmer initially thought Jeffrey was a murder victim, not a murderer. He learned the grisly details of his son's crimes during the trial before which his son was found to be legally sane and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in February 1992. [6]
A Father's Story runs chronologically from Jeffrey's birth until his arrest and imprisonment. Dahmer tries to figure out what made his son commit murder, practice necrophilia and cannibalism. He scrutinizes every possible contributing factor to his son's psychosis starting with himself. Dahmer judges himself a poor father because he was emotionally distant from his son. While reflecting, he "speculates that his own youthful shyness, fascination with bombs and fears of abandonment added up to a monstrous genetic inheritance." [7]
Rank Rich wrote for The New York Times : "Jeffrey Dahmer remains a phantom, defying logic. ... Mr. Dahmer's story is terrifying precisely because his blindness to his son's insanity was inseparable from his love for him." [7]
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?" [3]
Publishers Weekly reviewed that A Father's Story is "a book for criminologists, psychiatrists and the ghoulish." [8]
After Jeffrey was killed in prison by another inmate in November 1994, Dahmer wrote an additional chapter on the death of his son. [9] The new edition was published by Avon Books.
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.
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Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is the first season of the American true crime anthology series, Monster, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan for Netflix, which was released on September 21, 2022. Murphy also serves as showrunner and is an executive producer along with Brennan. Dahmer is about the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Other main characters include Dahmer's father Lionel, his stepmother Shari, suspicious neighbor Glenda, and grandmother Catherine.
Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes is a limited true crime docuseries created and directed by Joe Berlinger for Netflix. It is the third installment in the Conversations with a Killer series and succeeds Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes. The series depicts the murder spree of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered, dismembered and cannibalized 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991 in Wisconsin. The story is told through archival audio footage recorded during Dahmer's incarceration. It was released on October 7, 2022.
Lionel Herbert Dahmer was an American chemist and author known as the father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. In 1994, he wrote A Father's Story, a non-fictional account on his son's upbringing, subsequent progress to become a world-wide-known serial killer and its aftermath. Lionel's figure has been controversial in the subsequent years since his son's crimes, as both he and his first wife were accused of neglecting Jeffrey during his childhood.