It’s
not often that we are offered a look into the deeper inner workings of a
serial killers mind. You have your documentaries, yes, which
occasionally hint to the tormented youths of your average Jack the
Ripper and Son of Sam, but it is a rare occasion when we are offered the
opportunity for a first person look into who any one of these plagued
children truly used to be. In his second attempt at detailing his
personal memories of Jeffrey Dahmer, Derf Backderf presents us with My
Friend Dahmner, an extremely personal, yet abruptly distant perspective
into the life of a young Mr. Jeffrey Dahmer. Having known the serial
killer since the age of 12, attending the same middle school in the
early 70s, Derf describes his friendship with Dahmer as a relationship
he was “fine with during school hours” but “there was no way” he was
going to pursue a closer friendship outside of that. Dahmer, on the
other hand, described his friendships during high school as, simply, “a
good time.”
If you’re looking for a detailed account of Dahmers killings or the
research findings highlighted in the media after the discovery of his
gruesome crimes, then this is not the book for you. Instead, Backderf
explains, as best he or anyone truly can, the lie of a youth Jeffrey
Dahmer lived each and every day. Posing as the “Dahmer Fan Club” mascot,
Jeffrey was not considered a friend of the usual sort to this
self-described nerdy group of guys. He was, to them, a form of
entertainment. Derf explains that it didn’t take very long at all before
the group realized Jeffrey Dahmer was not only slightly different,
rather, he was sincerely off. These young boys allowed Jeff to entertain
them. They were, more than likely, the closest thing to a normal
relationship he ever had. He humored them with exaggerated “epileptic”
seizures, coupled with raucous outbursts and in return they tolerated
his presence, at least until their senior year.
It was the end of this
final year of his adolescence where Backderf believes Jeffrey finally
slipped into the darkness of his mind beyond return. His friends
abandoned him. His mother left him. His father was long gone. School,
where he never attended class, but went to drink in the shadows among
other living beings, was coming to its final end. It was at this point
that Jeffrey Dahmer was left to his thoughts and his thoughts alone.
This bitter loneliness proved to be the breading ground for the monster
we in the general public have come to know.
Backderf emphasizes the fact that his sympathy for Dahmer ends the
moment the first murder occurred, yet he makes it very clear that he is
unable to separate his memories of a shared youth with a lost young boy
from the harsh reality of who that boy became.
As the reader, you are
pulled into a lonely, desolate generation where the true question to be
posed regarding the outcome of Jeffrey Dahmers life is, “where were the
adults?” This question is asked a number of times throughout My Friend
Dahmer and by the end of this chilling 224 page graphic novel the reader
is left with a slightly more real understanding of how this serial
killer became the individual we know of today.
I give this 4 out of 5 Epstein’s!
