No comments about Step into My Parlor: The Chilling Story of Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

4 comments about Massacre in Milwaukee.

1. This book as far as I know was onw of the first written about the Jeffrey Dahmer case. The copy I got is a reissue that contains a few typos and such...(I wouldn't have their secretary review my work for typos)...but altogether, a very good read.
   Unlike alot of biographies that become a long, boring monologue about the subject, this one captivated me from the beginning, and kept me reading by not dragging on too long about mundane things. Now, just to let everyone know, I have most of the books and other publishings written about Jeffrey Dahmer, so the mere fact that I am scoring this so high says alot.
   The only down side to this book is the fact that it was written so early, before alot of the interviews were conducted with Jeffrey Dahmer, and before alot of information came to light. Most of the information is second and third party information, unlike other books that were written by people who were originally at the scene, but it still reads like it could have been written by someone who had first hand knowledge of the case.
   All in all, I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the case, both casual readers, and forensic enthusiasts alike.



2. Of the two books that I've read about Jeffrey Dahmer, the other being "An American Nightmare", "Massacre in Milwaukee" contains the most detail. Such as how Dahmer lived his life in the weeks and months leading up to his arrest, excerpts of visits he had with his parole officer, childhood classmates, Oxford Apartment residents and alot of minor details such as the exchange between a cab driver and Dahmer when asked about a certain 57 gallon barrel he had just bought, and words from one of Dahmer's neighbors when he heard the whine of a power saw and Dahmer yelling at someone who didn't respond back. The only problems I had with this book is that it ends shortly after his arrest and confession. There are many spelling errors and new paragraphs that begin in mid sentence. Even the first chapter, which takes it's title after Dahmer's apartment number 213, is titled "The Devil in 913". The 8 pages of black and white photos are alright but have the quality of pictures from a newspaper. Other than that I would have given "Massacre in Milwaukee" five stars.



3. I really wanted to read a book on Jeffrey Dahmer and this was one of the few available publications. Though it is very informative, it loses a little because of poor editing. I don't normally catch things like that, but this book had enough that it was noticeable. One problem was the work "had" was replaced by "bad" in many places throughout the book. I guess they did a spell check, but no one ever proof read the manuscript. The other problem is that the book is obviously a rush job to get on the market first. The bad cut and past photos they worked into the middle of the book are grainy and terrible looking. Also the story was written well before Dahmer meets his end in prison. It would have been nice to get that part in the book. Maybe there will be a revised edition one day. This is a decent history of Dahmer, but it is not perfect.



4. Decent book. Not too many irrelevant & boring details. However, i am not sure if my copy was like that, but i have never read a book before written in such bad English. Bad English meaning grammar, luck of punctuation throughout the book, incomplete words. That was really strange and a big turn off.

4 comments about Jeffery Dahmer: A Bizarre Journey into the Mind of America's Most Tormented Serial Killer.

1. I could not put this book down. I was drawn into his evil acts and shocked by his actions. How could someone be that demented? I know that he wouldn't have stopped. But he was tired of playing his games. He was his own God and he created his own world in which his fantasy would become real. I believe he couldn't have been a happy person. He wanted to be loved so badly but he went about it in the sickest way possible. His fantasy world took over him. As dark as it was but in his mind it wasn't bad. To him he loved to people he murdered. They would live forever inside him.



2. Engulfed by Joel's words more than any other psychologist, psychotherapist, psychiatrist etc ever before, even including Park Dietz and his honest humanity; I can read his book in the minimal of time, because I cannot put the book down. 'Accurate' is an understatement to his definition, understanding and forthrigheousness. Morris' almost matter-of-fact like observancy is obvious of his qualification to talk on such matter - his account of Dahmer is supurlative, the ONLY one. If I may, I could ask you to check the review below........Quotes as such "I was drawn into his evil acts and shocked by his actions" and "He wanted to be loved so badly but he went about it in the sickest way" Copyright permitting from this person's review - this should really be the point of view from anyone, I think; and eventhough a negative and a poitive still equal a negative; I really STRONGLY agree; I do say that Dahmer could have been happy, but recognising anything 'different' in the age of a 6 year old is a nightmare for anyone, if not impossible. Whichever way, Joel Norris make this even more apparent than ANYONE could have thought before. I reccomend this book to anyone interested in Jeff, and serial killers in general - or more to the point.....EVERYBODY.



3. this is a very good book filled with many interesting tid bits. i must have read it about 5 times. it's well illestrated, and really gets you thinking about one of the worlds biggest monsters as a person who only wanted to be loved.



4. I presume this book was written very soon after the Dahmer trial, as the gaping holes in research are most apparent.
   There is no mention of Dahmer's childhood double hernia operation, which according to his father, changed him from a happy bubbly child to a withdrawn loner.
   However, it was interesting to read quotes from former classmates etc.
   I would recommend Brian Master's book for accuracy, although I found at times he was too sympathetic to Dahmer, which made me cringe to say the least.
   There are some major untruths in the book. Dahmer was not an animal abuser, as stated, and his love of his pets was ignored.
   Too much experts ponitificating on their own theories,yawn.
   I would look to other books for a more truthful account.

3 comments about Of Men And Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer And The Construction of the Serial Killer.

1. Typical of postmodern "theory," the writing is needlessly complex, which, also typical of postmodernists, hides the fact that the author is substantively ignorant of the topic and has no insight to offer. If you can sort through the jargon, this book basically argues that serial murders would not happen if we just ignored the killers, because they are part of a "discursive" loop, in which the killers are a sort of performer who kill to please their audience, which is the public. The author is oblivious to work done in psychology, criminology, sociology, and FBI investigations. Overall, the book is a flight from reality, which would be humorous if the topic were not so serious.



2. I found this to be a good book, given the relatively difficult topic, very informative (another person's (Richard's in this case) is always usefully anyhow; however, this is the most hardest of reading material that I have ever come across. ADVICE: One Korean Gingseng and no alcohol before opening Richard's Book.



3. This is the finest book on the subject, addressing not what serial killers ARE but why we make them the way they are, how they function for us, and why we need them. The prose is witty, direct, and precise; the argument is more chilling than any horror story.

1 comments about Jeffrey Dahmer's Dirty Secret: The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh.

1. The Hollywood, Florida police say they've solved the Adam Walsh murder -- but do they really think that? They should read this book -- of course, they won't like it much. The most logical conclusion is Jeffrey Dahmer did it. Police are stuck on Ottis Toole, but the only support for that is his not-credible confession, which rightly got dismissed in 1983. The police never acknowledged they had any witnesses who saw Adam taken from the toy department of a Sears where his mother had left him alone. But by combing deep through the police's own files, Harris found six witnesses who repeatedly had tried to be heard. Police had asked them whether they'd seen Toole. They hadn't -- and were told Thank you very much, now go away. Harris asked whether they'd seen Dahmer. Two had already told police that's who they'd seen, two more absolutely confirmed it, and two more came close, with emotional reactions to seeing Dahmer's picture and recognizing it as who they likely saw taking Adam out of the store. Harris has more supporting the Dahmer argument, but what more do the police need to start honestly considering this? Although this book has a lot of new information about Dahmer, it's less a regular true crime story about violence and more about a close examination of a police investigation -- one gone very, very wrong beginning on the day of Adam's kidnapping to the day they closed the case -- on Toole! Harris is a first-class reporter and has thoroughly documented the book with material from the police case file, supplemented by his own 13-year investigation. It took that long because the police kept their records from public view as long as they could. The book is a rare and riveting look into a case that was the biggest in the city's history.

5 comments about The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: The Secret Murders of Milwaukee's Jeffrey Dahmer.

1. This manages to make Dahmer's macabre story boring by stiffly recounting the tale in chronological fashion. The writer, a cop's wife and a Milwaukee newspaper reporter who was first on the scene, doesn't really have the skill to write a full length book. She needed a ghost writer to make the facts come alive. It reads like a long and dull newspaper article. With so many better accounts on the market, don't bother with this one.



2. I was interested for the first few chapters, and then completely lost interest, which is crazy because I find the whole Dahmer story very intriguing. She talks far too much about journalism and what the police went through rather than telling about what was going on with Dahmer during all this, and it just seemed to me like she was bragging about being a good journalist who was in with the cops and that she was married to one. It took me weeks to read it just because I kept having to force myself to go on reading about all these things when I just wanted to know more about the man himself. She went to far off topic, it read like an extremely long drawn out newspaper article, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.



3. I'm somehow not surprised that Anne E. Schwartz, in the years since she burst into fame by being the first reporter in Jeffrey Dahmer's sordid apartment, has first off stopped writing and secondly taken a job as PR woman for the Milwaukee Police Department. As a reporter, she had a big heart and lots of sympathy for overworked cops, but she wasn't too great at writing. And as a true crime writer, her book is a bit of a mess. She was there, on the spot, but she never really learned much about Jeffrey Dahmer nor about any of his victims. She's not really able to give us much of that unexpected glimpse into the apartment, with the body parts littered around and the Playgirl photos of good looking guys on the walls. Instead, a good chunk of her book takes up the theme of police tragedy, and what happens to you when you as a cop ignore a naked teenage boy running around on the street in shock, and you release him back into the hands of the guy who winds up killing him for good a few hours later.
   
   Yes, that's what happened to Konerak Sinthasomphone, who escaped without his clothes from Dahmer's apartment, and because he couldn't speak much English, he was given back by several officers to the killer, who had a sort of plausible cover story. Afterwards, when the story came to light, the officers in charge were fired for what seemed to the court to have been a shocking dereliction of duty, but to them at the time, they didn't see it that way. The Milwaukee Journal identified the cops; one of them cancelled his subscription to the paper in protest and lost 20 pounds. He was shocked that, after six years as a cop, people would think he was a racist. At least John Balcerzak had the support of a loving wife and some cute daughters. His partner, handsome, feather-cut Joe Gabrish was not so lucky, being a bachelor with few social resources.
   
   Their boss, Chief Arreola, was always smiling, sort of eerie! Anne E. Schwartz, in one of her few colorful passages, compared his constant unsettling smile to the Joker in BATMAN. Like his mouth was frozen that way into a smile that made no sense under the circumstances.



4. My time, and my dollar and nine cents could go to better use. Watching paint dry, perhaps with a cup of coffee. This book is a piece of one-off schlock by someone who obviously had her golden window of opportunity by "being popular" with the men in blue, and came to write this. The declining arc of her subsequent career moves leads me to wonder where her talent lay. Journalism? TV? Now she's spinning for the MPD. At least she gets to be in front of the camera from time to time. Good thing, too. She hasn't been able to pop out another book.



5. It appears that the author of this book benefited from her friendship with the local police in investigating and writing this book. I believe at the time she was involved (married or living with) a police officer and as such she sides way too much with the police department in defending their bungling of this case before Dahmer was finally arrested for his crimes. She also sugar coats the rampant racism that was the status quo at the police department before Dahmer's capture. I strongly disagree with her decision to publish the criminal records of Dahmer's victims as it give the appearance of blaming them somehow for their fate. While she did benefit slightly from the access she was allowed in providing details others could not, it can't make up for her lack of skill as a writer. It should be noted that after writing this book she went on to become the official spokesperson for the very same police department. If anyone knows of a really good book on this subject please share the title with me as this book left me quite unsatisfied.

5 comments about Dark Journey Deep Grace: Jeffrey Dahmer's Story of Faith.

1. Jesus told a parable where a number of individuals worked in a field as day laborers. Some of the workers worked all day long and others worked only one hour. At the end of the day they were all paid the same wage. Those who had worked the hardest felt that such treatment was unfair. The owner replied, "Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take it and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you.... Should you be angry because I am kind?" (Matthew 20:13-15). Jeffrey Dahmer discovering the grace of God and responding in simple trusting faith is a true scandal! But it is no more scandalous than Jesus saving a convicted criminal who was crucified beside him. Both were saved, not because they were worthy of salvation, but because they trusted in the one who loved them and took the punishment they deserved.
   
   I am thankful to Roy Ratcliff for sharing his story. It was an encouragement to me to read of a preacher who devoted himself to working for the kingdom of God instead of selfishly working to "grow" his own church. The book tells enough of the horrendous sins of Jeffrey Dahmer so that the reader will understand how wicked he truly was, however, it does not go into unnecessary gory detail. The focus of the author was truly on the marvelous grace of God. Ratcliff tells the story as a humble servant doing his master's bidding.



2. The true story of Jeffrey Dahmer's repentance and trust in Jesus for salvation is way better than the book about the true story. It's hard to ruin a story as big as a homicidal, homosexual, cannibalistic, necrophiliac monster serial killer finding redemption in the God of mercy and forgiveness, and even Roy Ratcliff's poor writing can't do that, but it comes mighty close. The book is honestly very poorly written and the dialog almost always seems forced, but the story itself is powerful and gripping. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in 2 sittings. Despite the poor writing skills of its authors, this book deserves to be read because it speaks of God's infinite mercy to those who ask it of Him. If God could forgive Jeffrey Dahmer, I guess He might be able to forgive Roy Ratcliff's poor writing. :) In terms of literary skill I want to give this book a 1 or 2, but in terms of story I'd give it closer to a 4 or 5. Hence, a 3 seemed appropriate.



3. I liked the book because it was honest. The author did not profess to fully know Dahmer's heart or the motives of his actions that were revealed after he was murdered.
   
   Overall, the book is about steps of faith in Christ by a heinous murderer. The author's interaction with Mr.Dahmer is similar to most young believers who are searching God's Words. Its not about the scrutiny of Mr. Dahmer's past motives nor his inner sexual struggle as a young believer. Its about baby steps of a young Christian man.
   
   I really liked it because I accepted Christ when I was an adult. Most of Dahmer's question were mine as well.
   
   I realized after reading the book that its not up to me to judge this man to hell for his lascivious/malicious murders. Quite frankly, when I think about it, it makes me think what kind of heart this man has.
   
   Jesus said, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"
   
   How great was the darkness in Mr. Dahmer before Christ. That is why everyone who is in Christ is a new creature.
   
   This book allows you to meditate. It makes you look past the awful sinner, who committed indescribable crimes than most of us, to Jesus--the author and perfector of Christian faith.
   
   Think about it. If you firmly believe Jesus when HE said He is Alpha and Omega. he knows our beginnings and end---the whole history of the universe.
   Then Mr. Jeffrey Dahmer is included in this.
   
   God could have (and can) taken the life of Dahmer right then and there when he was arrested or allowed an evil spirit to torment him to suicide. If we believe in Scriptures and nothing is impossible with God, then we know He could have made Mr. Dahmer's story different.
   
   Yet God allowed this controversy to reveal in every believer His amazing grace. To trust in Him regardless of evil men and women or calamities or circumstances.
   
   God never promised our world to be peaceful. He simply said His peace will be with us and that is enough to overcome.
   
   Mr. Dahmer's murders is wicked, but no more wicked than children in poor countries, where life is cheap, to be used for years as sexual slaves and more. Even now people abuse and murder people. Unknown to media, in some places there are people like Dahmer perpetuating this crime. A place unlike America that can prosecute a cannibal murderer.
   
   This book will let you ponder on grace, forgiveness and evil in this world.
   
   I'm glad to be in Jesus Christ.



4. Although it includes some gory details, it is a story of God's grace and mercy offered to all. If God can forgive someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, He can forgive you too. A great book to read !



5. My wife has read this book (she always snaffles stuff before me!). She's a bit of a true crime buff, and this is really her review. As a Christian, this is a great story; it's great to be confronted by God's shocking grace again. As far as how well the book is written, it's not great, but then there are many, many books out there about criminals which are written far worse than this one - the writing doesn't take too much away from the story.

5 comments about A Father's Story.

1. "A Father's Story" was a fascinating book. Definitely illuminating on a lot of levels. But what struck me, time and again while reading it, was that it would more properly have been titled "A Father's Confession". As much as Lionel Dahmer says "I didn't see; I couldn't have known" and tries to excuse himself and (on some level) APOLOGIZE, there's no missing the tremendous guilt he bears over never having seen the obvious in his son.
   
   I won't delve too deeply into the insights provided on Jeffery Dahmer's psyche because none of it's really new if you followed the case remotely. What struck me about the insights it offered into the personality and problems of Lionel Dahmer.
   
   His guilt is obvious and understandable, but I found his attempts to shift blame off on his wife to be fairly distasteful. I'm not saying she wasn't part of the problem (in cases like these, BOTH parents usually share the burden of guilt), but he never even addresses his own culpability in matters. This is in no way an attack on him, merely an observation. He complains that his wife took numerous different medications during the pregnancy, suggests maybe that contributed to Jeffery Dahmer's later problems. But he certainly never attempted to deter her from taking those pills himself or he certainly would have said so. He seems to imply that he blames Joyce but, if he didn't know better at the time, how was she to? He would have done better to blame the doctors who prescribed those drugs in the first place. And, in the early chapters, there's a lot about how their marriage deteriorated because "she couldn't accept me". If the man he describes in the later chapters is the man Joyce Dahmer was married to, I can't say I blame her for being less-than-accepting.
   
   What struck me most about the book is that Lionel Dahmer displays some fairly alarming symptoms in his own right. I wondered more than once if he did not, perhaps, suffer from some variant of Schizoid Personality Disorder. He certainly at least has flat affect and social awkwardness going for him. Even if he doesn't have a full-blow schizoaffective disorder, some of the behaviors he displayed during his own childhood would make you nod and say "yeah, he probably grew up to be a serial killer".
   
   He admits to having experienced violent dreams and "dark" moods although he doesn't really elaborate on the nature of those moods or dreams. It's also fair to assume that he's at least a mild pyromaniac based on the fact that he freely confessed to having made hand grenades and bombs as a child. Perhaps more ominous given his son's future fixation on utterly controlling his victims, Lionel Dahmer confesses to having once hypnotized a neighbor girl. He didn't even bat an eye-lash when a toddler Jeffery displayed an almost obsessive fascination with some animal bones, which makes me wonder if his own childhood didn't contain a fascination with death.
   
   Perhaps I'm seeing things that aren't there, but a great deal of this book had me reconsidering my belief that "serial killers are made, not born". I can't help but wonder whether Jeffery Dahmer's psychosis could have had a genetic component. Certainly his upbringing was never quite as troubled or abusive as that most famous serial killers come from.
   To me, THAT was the real revelation from this book. It's fascinating and sad, to be sure, but very little presented in its pages is new. Probably more one to borrow from the library or from a friend than one you want to bother plunking down hard cash for...



2. I was already familiar with the basic outline of Jeff Dahmer's life before reading this. Even so, A Father's Story does a good job providing insight into why Jeff turned out the way he did. It provides a unique perspective of someone who was close to Jeff throughout his entire life, unlike any other book written about him.
   
   One of the most striking revelations is how Lionel Dahmer never apparently quite understood just how inappropriate his reactions to Jeff's foul ups were. Although he candidly admits on numerous occasions that he would evade conflict by focusing on his PhD work or his job, he never quite admits how profoundly his tendency to avoid conflict could have affected Jeff. Every time Jeff screwed up in life (which was a lot), the father's reaction always seemed to have been to bail Jeff out of trouble (more or less), apply a one step "solution" to divert Jeff away from his foul up, then hope the problem would just go away. Not once does the father seem to reflect on how he had applied this failed tactic throughout all of Jeff's life.
   
   It's also obvious that Lionel believed Jeff's explanations time and time again despite that Jeff was clearly a compulsive liar. Moreover, every bombshell that Lionel found out about, whether it was Jeff's alcoholism, arrests for sexual indecency, or homosexuality, he only found out about through others. Clearly then, Lionel's avoidance of Jeff's problems was itself a grave concern.
   
   Having said that, Lionel was also a very caring father who unabashedly loved Jeff even after his death, and it's obvious that he raised Jeff the best way he knew how to. Despite Lionel's faults as a parent, Jeff was the one mainly responsible for becoming the barbaric killer that he ultimately became. And I have to give the father credit for writing, on more than one occasion, self-deprecating, embarrassing thoughts and stories about his own life. He was very brave to write this book.
   
   So anyway, back to the point, if you're looking for a book that will give you fresh perspective into the life of Jeff Dahmer, you should read this.



3. I was fortunate enough to procure this in hardcover when it was released, and I doubt there will be a second run since it wasn't well-received by the media (who I don't think bothered to read it, instead chastising Lionel for trying to capitalize on his son's gruesome crimes). Lionel Dahmer, father of Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey, has left us a poignant and candid memoir facing his own demons and trying to find out what darkness inside of him might have become part of his child. I found it moving, and have returned to it time and again. This book is a case of important-writing done by non-writers, and belongs on your true crime shelf.



4. Most accounts of the lives of serial killers just skim the surface. They itemize the atrocities committed, and, if they have ambitions of providing psychological insight, they recount the beatings and the poverty the perpetrator suffered as a youth. However this account does neither. It couldn't if it wanted to. That's because Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the few murderers who has no childhood history of abuse to explain his actions. So in this book, his father is forced to go deeper to try to find the roots of his son's aberrations.
   
   The result is an anguished examination of the private festering that might have given rise to Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes. In the process of looking for early signs, early inklings, Lionel Dahmer traces many of the tendrils of the mad imaginings that he eventually found had ruled his son's life - back to himself. He says that in some ways, he believes his own obsessions might have been the shadowy precursors of his son's full-blown madness. Lionel Dahmer recounts how he was obsessed with fire, with bombs, with exercising mesmerizing control over others when he was a child.
   
   He also discusses the medical conditions his wife suffered from around the time of her difficult pregnancy with Jeffrey. While he does consider that some twisted genetic inheritance might have dictated Jeffrey's behavior, he is still left with a benumbing sense of blame and shame.
   
   There is a generally spare, somber, weighted tone to the writing in this book, although there are some very literate, almost poetic passages, as for example when Lionel admits that he buried himself so much in his work in the chemical analysis laboratory, that he saw Jeffrey only "in glimpses... felt him in snatches." Lionel describes how he played the role of dutiful father and husband, but didn't vitally experience either the joys or loves or sorrows that most people seem to get out of these relationships.
   
   I had criticized a low-budget independent movie that was made based on this book, because the actors in it seemed so emotionless. The actor who played the father especially gave the appearance of sleepwalking through his performance. But this book suggests that that's how life was really lived for much of the time in this household. The father took the son fishing - played soccer with him. There were all the seeming normalcies - from Halloween parties - to a college enrolment. But if Lionel's self-criticisms are accurate, in truth all these Norman Rockwell tableaus took place as the aftermath of "The Invasion of the BodySnatchers." Everyone was actually a walking simulacrum, an emptiness posing as a real person.
   
   Well, that is probably the case in many families, but hardly any children grow up to be cannibalistic serial killers. So the mystery of "Why?" remains. But this account goes farther than almost any other book on serial killers I've read in plumbing to the undertow of trouble that can flow in even the "best" families.



5. A Father's Story by Lionel Dahmer is a harrowing account of a father trying to come to terms with the murderous crimes of his son. It is a story that brings us to the limits of belief in its descriptions of how a little boy became one of the nation's worst criminals. It is a true story that makes us ever cautious of our own children as they grow up in the modern world with all the influences that can lead children astray. But more than anything, A Father's Story is a warning to all of us that we need to be ever present for our sons and to provide direction and purpose for their lives. Lionel Dahmer is that father and Jeff Dahmer was that son.
   
   From the beginning of Jeff's life we see a traumatic series of events that may have played an important role in molding the violent man that Jeff would later become. His mother, for example, struggled with severe health problems during the pregnancy- nervous seizures and extreme sensitivity to noise- sometimes taking as many as twenty six pills a day to relieve her symptoms. Moreover, the first years of Jeff's life seemed anything but stable. Jeff's family changed homes several times while Lionel worked hard at finishing his PhD. On top of his mother's continuing illness, this time was plagued by arguments between both parents. Indeed stress had reached a peak with Jeff's mother Joyce feeling condemned to spending all her days at home while Lionel spent all his days and sometimes much of the night working in the laboratory. By his own admission, the laboratory had become Lionel's obsession- his focus in life that would cause him to rush home for supper and back to the laboratory with barely a glimpse of Jeff as he played in the yard. With all its comfort and the predictability of its molecular reactions, the lab had literally become a refuge from the unpredictability of family life.
   
   Gradually Jeff Dahmer the boy sank into his own world withdrawing from reality:"drifting toward that unimaginable realm of fantasy and isolation" as his family struggled to deal with its own brokenness. But Jeff clearly yearned for his father. At times he would clutch onto his father with joy sensing the security we all feel when our fathers come to our rescue. But these moments were rare- as he grew into a teenager, Jeff sunk further into his own "quagmire of inactivity" spending much of his time alone in his room or watching television. A different side of Jeff began to develop- a side that was curiously interested in collecting the remains of dead animals. Oblivious to these changes, Lionel could not fathom the depth of isolation that had gripped his own son's life. Indeed in his isolation, Jeff would gradually become an alcoholic turning to the bottle in desperation during his final years at school.
   
   Jeff carried out his first murder at the age of eighteen. His mother had already deserted him, leaving him alone in her house to fall yet deeper into his insanity. Lionel's later attempts to send him to college ended up in disaster. With his absence from class and his ever increasing problem of drinking, Lionel pulled him out of college. With Jeff's unwillingness to work, Lionel finally sent him to the army hoping that the structured and disciplinary life style of the military would change his attitude and outlook. Initially things went very well for Jeff- his father noticed what appeared to be a transformation in attitude and appearance. But this moment of hope for his future came to an end when, three months before his military service was up, he was discharged, again because of his drinking.
   
   Seemingly in desperation, Lionel suggested that Jeff leave their house in Bath, Ohio to live with his grandmother in West Allis Wisconsin. Lionel believed that the affectionate nature of his grandmother and the love that she felt for Jeff would offer the best environment for getting his life in order. Once again this period - which lasted over 6 years- was a time of great hope. Jeff helped out his grandmother with all the tasks and daily chores around the house. And yet free as he was from the safety net that only a father's love could provide, the sinister side of Jeff's character continued to develop unabated. He began to steal, he acquired a gun, he brought strangers back home and he took on a very curious interest in chicken bones which he bought from the store and treated with numerous household chemicals.
   
   After moving out of his grandmother's house Jeff was arrested on charges of child molestation. For this he was sentenced to 5 years of probation with the first year in a work release program. Deep down, Lionel still believed that the innocence of the little boy that he had known in his son could be rescued, that Jeff's problems were all simply connected to his alcoholism and that with the right kind of psychiatric help his son would return to some level of normalcy and decency in his life. Little did Lionel know of the gruesome details of all that would later take place in his son's house and of the murders that his son had committed. Only later on, following his final arrest and the media frenzy that accompanied the trial of his son, would the sordidness and the perversity of his drift from sanity and humanity become apparent. Jeff had murdered through acts of violence that defy belief.
   
   So ended all hope of Jeff Dahmer's rescue. As his trial proceeded Jeff showed little remorse for his acts. His father began to search his own inner self remembering his own childhood fantasies and nightly dreams as if they offered some explanation for what his son had done and what he had become. He remembered his own desire for control and power and his idea that his PhD would give him that power. As Jeff was sentenced to life imprisonment hundreds of letters, some religious in nature and some from people seeking comfort from Jeff for their own personal problems and life struggles, began pouring in. But it was the search for a cause- for some sort of reason, for a simple explanation- that occupied much of Lionel Dahmer's time.
   
   Maybe it had been Jeff's genetic makeup, maybe his alcoholism and drug-taking, maybe the drugs that Lionel's first wife had taken during the difficult pregnancy or maybe even the violence that Jeff had been exposed to through television. But as speaker and author Robert Lewis suggests, perhaps more importantly than all of these might have been the lack of parental direction that could well have prevented Jeff from simply `drifting away' both as a child and as a teenager. Jeff had lacked the guidance a child s desperately needs. He had been left alone to drift. Dahmer's last words provide a stark warning to all of us fathers: "Take care, take care, take care". Ours is a world fraught with danger. Ours is a world in which we must take care of our own- our sons and daughters- to ensure that they become the men and women God wants them to be.

5 comments about The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer.

1. An excellent book about a Mr. Dahmer, who had so much potential -- good looks, intelligence, good work ethic. The review below me seems rather strange. I have studied philosophy for years, and I cannot see the validity of your interpretation. You seem to be focusing on tangential issues of the book, such as Freud etc, instead of seeing the book as a whole.
   
   Brian Masters offers a very sound profile of all the facts involved in the Mr. Dahmer case. It is extremely well written, and is very humanistic in it's tone. Frankly, this, along with Lionel Dahmers book, is THE best Dahmer book....one that that is in stark contrast to many other books on Dahmer, which offer hearsay, rumours, and sometimes, plain nonsense.
   
   I believe Mr. Masters was very astute in the writing of this book, and agree with him on almost every point he makes with regards to Mr. Dahmer, the case, the courts, etc. The respect he shows towards Jeffrey is also admirable. He doesn't lower himself to gutter media, in which Dahmer is labelled, "a monster", a "devil" etc etc Such labels are hyperbolic and do nothing except creat more hate and pain -- something which the world has enough off already.
   
   In summary, and excellant and dignified book.



2. I've been reading lots of books about Dahmer and this was definitely the best. Brian Masters made a lot of research before writing it and that is visible in every line. He's also very respectfull in mentioning where he took every quote from.
   SOME OTHER BOOKS I read (i'm not mentioning wich they were in respect to the author) took a 'novel' path,wich is easy-reading, but keeps you a little suspicious about the accuracy of the information.You don't get that impression at all with Masters' book. A piece of advice: You should get a brief notion of Dahmer life-line before diving into the overwhelming storm of details in the book, the amount of information unknown for most people is quite impressive! I found every one of them precious.[:)] Some OTHER BOOKS I read took a long time disserting about subject apart from Dahmer's life (connected to it in some degree,though,of course),but they spent too much time on that,it got boring sometimes..In Brian Masters' you have discussion on ohter points related to Dahmer's life,but somehow he managed to choose only interesting psychological issues and he talks about them only long enough not to lose the reader's interest.
   His timing is perfect.How long he stays in each incident,how much 'poetry' he uses (he's not technical to the point of making the reading tiring,he's not 'novelist' to the point of losing the reader's credibility).. It's like eating a fine delicassy, where everything is perfectly dosed to a fine combination and nothing is too much or too less.
   
   COMMENTARY ON Jason Cullen's review (below mine)
   You should know that the way you put things in a text has great influence upon its meaning..The way you transcribed the 'masturbation' part of the book in your review was careless, trying to make it sound funny, but you forgot to mention this piece was one of the cases when missing the context really affects the whole idea of the author. You didn't even transcribed the FIRST sentence COMPLETELY,you started it in the middle.If you had posted the text without any intention of 'making up minds' into your opinion or trying to make fun of the author,if you had not omitted the first part of the sentence, and if besides that,one had had acess to the former sentence and the context, it wouldn't have seemed ridiculous at all.
   The chapter is about Fantasies, with special reference to the 'dark' ones.
   'Most fantasies are so peculiar and unfulfillable that they are never admitted,and perish with their host in the grave.It is well for society that we do not know all the fantasies wich accompany,consciously or unconsciously,every erotic indulgence. (...)Sexual fantasy promotes marturbation and is generally satisfied by it. To that extent, masturbation is not merely forgivable, but blameless (...)'
   
   and there goes the part you transcribed.
   
   'But because there is omnipotence in fantasy and restriction in reality, the two must be kept rigorously apart;(...)Reality poisons the spring of fantasy,whereas fantasy,when it erupts into the real world,brings destruction in its wake.'
   
   Obviously someone with fantasies of muitlation and extreme violence at the age of 15 will develop a different relation with masturbation than ordinary kids. What may seem 'laughable' in your universe may not in someone else's. The idea exposed sounds very reasonable.
   You said your interested in extremes of human behavior, but you surely appear not to have lived with it (not even in a minor degree).Anyone with any minimum tendencies to darker fantasies would understand that part cristal clear and not think it's funny. So I guess it's not a problem with the author's idea, but with the fact that this idea doesn't fit in your universe,that's why you see 'laughability' in it.
   About the poor writing, I'm honestly not able to talk about it, as i'm not a native english speaker. It surely didn't
   sound like literature to me, but if I was looking for something 'philosophical' I wouldn't read a crime book, I would look for Francis Bacon and Anotonin Artaud, for instance. [:)] I was sincerely more interested in Dahmer's history.



3. Thanks, Brian, for portraying Jeff as a human being. This book brought tears to my eyes. All poor Jeff needed was to be loved and feel special.
   
   I wish I had contacted Jeff, but, hindsight is always 20/20.
   
   RIP, Jeff, With Love



4. This is one of the better books about Jeffrey Dahmer. It contains much more detail then the other two books I've reviewed on Amazon, but on the other hand it doesn't have certain details that those other two books offer. It quickly breezes through his time in the army and his stay in Florida and when it comes to describing the murders themselves the author doesn't hold anything back.
   
   The book itself is very well written and describes in the first chapter some of the items that were found in Dahmer's apartment, like videotapes ranging from Tropical Heat Wave and Return of the Jedi to an episode of The Bill Cosby Show. I learned a few new things about Dahmer that I didn't know before, such as during his trial he was taken to and from court every day in a wheelchair because of the weight of the shackles on his legs (there's even a picture showing him being wheeled from the courtroom), and that the apartment he rented at the Oxford was a furnished apartment. The only mistake I noticed was in the pictures section where their is a page of all of the victims and one photo is identified as Konerak Sinthasomphone but the picture is of his brother, Somsack.
   
   Since the book was written in 1993 it doesn't cover Dahmer's murder in prison, but it does foreshadow it. The last chapter, called "The Shrine" isn't that good because the author spends most of it talking about the history of cannibalism by ancient tribes, indians, etc. and only briefly at the end does he focus on the shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. A dull last chapter that ends a great book. But it still deserves five stars.



5. The author really stands out among true crime authors because of the philosophical attitude he has toward his subject. Masters doesn't sympathize with Dahmer, but he preserves a reflective attitude when dealing with absolutely horrifying events. Unusual perspective in a genre bogged down with moralizing and sensationalism.

5 comments about The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

1. Actually,I ordered this book by mistake,intnding to buy a different book about Jeffrey Dahmer.I must say,the peoplr at Amazon were just wonderful about it. They helped me get the order canceled and the money was put back in my acct.just like they said.



2. WHEN THIS EVENT OCCURED I WAS GLUED TO THE T.V. TAPING EVERY SECOND OF THE TRIAL. I HAD SINCE LOST MY COLLECTION OF WHAT I HAD. AND THIS BOOK WAS THE MOST FACTUAL AND TRUE TO THE ACCOUNTS OF WHAT HAD TOOK PLACE AT THAT TIME. THIS WRITER DESCRIBES EVERY ACCOUNT AS I REMEMBER HAPPENING AND AS I AM A TRUE CRIME BUFF, I APPRECIATE BEING ABLE TO FIND A WRITER SUCH AS THIS ! I COULD NOT PUT DOWN THIS BOOK AND READ IT IN ITS ENTIRITY IN ONE EVENING.
   WONDERFUL AND ENLIGHTENING READ INTO THE MIND OF JEFFREY DAHMER !!



3. I have always been intrigued by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer I've read many true crimes book on him but this one was repetive and basically the same old stuff. This one kept reminding you of the one that got away and to have been returned to Apt. 213 by the Milwaukee Police because they thought it was just a gay lover's spat. Even after the putrid smell emitted from the apt. upon opening the door. Proving the laziness/racism in the police depts. This book jumped around alot also. Not the best one on Dahmer that I've ever read. I think I've heard better High School book reports!!



4. Ive never gotten mad at a book before i read this one. For example at one point i had to look at the cover of the book to make sure it was jeff dahmers story, cuz the author spent more time talkin about the history of the towns and cities dahmer lived in. And as far as describing the crimes he commited they were very vague and undetailed i recomend against this book.



5. I used this book for a research report. It covers the basics of the story but sometimes wanders a bit off topic. Be aware that many of the dates of incidents within the text do not match the timeline in the back of the book.