Pastoral Psychol (2011) 60:377397

DOI 10.1007/s11089-011-0348-5

Confession and Forgiveness: A Pastoral Reading

of A Fathers Son by Lionel Dahmer
Nathan Carlin

Published online: 11 March 2011

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract This paper offers a pastoral reading of the memoir written by Lionel Dahmer, the
father of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. I suggest that the literary genre of the memoir
provided Lionel with a means of confession that enabled him to process three particular
experiences related to his sonnamely, grief, shame, and regret. I also suggest that the
writing of this confession enabled Lionel to forgive his son for his sons various failures
and, potentially, to forgive himself for his own failures as a father, though this latter point
can only be offered speculatively. This memoir is inherently pastoral and theological
because it deals with the themes of confession and forgiveness, and, theologically, the
memoir also may be viewed as a work of penance. One theological upshot, based on
Lionels experience, entails challenging the idea that God the Father abandoned God the
Son on the cross: A more divine model of fatherhood would be one in which a father could
embrace the shame of standing by his son when the chips are down.
Keywords Confession . Forgiveness . Fatherhood . Grief . Shame . Regret . Jeffrey
Dahmer . Lionel Dahmer . Memoir

Introduction
The day the sun turned dark
On the day that Jeffrey Dahmer was baptized, the sun turned dark. There was an eclipse of
the sun (Ratcliff 2006, pp. 6566). Pastor Roy Ratcliff, a minister in the Church of Christ,
baptized Dahmer by means of full immersion in the prison whirlpool on May 10, 1994.
This day was infamous for another reason as well: the execution of serial killer John Wayne
Gacy. Ratcliff notes that many took the solar eclipse to be a sign from God; and while some
thought that this reflected Gods judgment on Gacy, others, however, thought that the solar
N. Carlin (*)
McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, The University of Texas Medical School, 6431 Fanin, JJL
400, Houston, TX 77030, USA
e-mail: Nathan.Carlin@uth.tmc.edu

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eclipse reflected Gods judgment on the practice of the death penalty. Perhaps reasons could
be given on both sides regarding Dahmers baptism as well, that, in other words, the eclipse
represented that the baptism was somehow evil and that Dahmer was beyond confession
and forgiveness, or, rather, that the eclipse represented evil being overcome in the baptism.
In any case, Ratcliff (2006) wrote a short book about his experiences with Jeffrey Dahmer,
and the central question that he deals with in the book is: Is it possible for God to forgive a
sinner such as Jeffrey Dahmer? Ratcliff believes so.
This paper deals with confession and forgiveness. But I do not deal with Jeffrey Dahmers
religious conversion or the theological question as to whether Jeffrey Dahmer could go to
heaventhose are Ratcliffs questions. I deal with, rather, confession and forgiveness in a
memoir written by Lionel Dahmer, the father of Jeffrey Dahmer. I suggest that the literary genre
of the memoir provided Lionel with a means of confession that enabled him to process three
particular experiences related to his sonnamely, grief, shame, and regret. I also suggest that
the writing of this confession enabled Lionel to forgive his son for his sons various failures and,
potentially, to forgive himself for his own failures as a father.
Memoir and the need to confess
Two years ago at this conference I noted that pastoral theologians should be focusing on
three areas in the coming years: issues related to gender and sexuality; issues related to
mental illness; and issues related to aging (cf. Carlin 2009b). The theme for this years
conference is pastoral theology and art, and I have chosen to focus on the theological
implications of a memoir that deals with mental illness. Donald Capps (2005) has recently
made a case for a memoir approach to studying mental illness because they provide a
richer context than a case example provides for appreciating the devastating effects of
mental illness on the afflicted persons and their families (p. 3, Cappss emphasis).
The memoir, as a form of artistic expression, is a subgenre of autobiographical writing
that often focuses on a life event or a period of ones life and what one can learn from it.
Memoirs tend to be less formal than autobiographies and give less attention to getting all of
the facts right, and so memoirs are, in this sense, more artistic than autobiographies. Ross
Murfin and Supryia Ray (1998) point out that feminist critics, such as Nancy Miller, have
suggested that autobiographies are gendered in that they tend to focus on male concerns
events such as those associated with work and, in many cases, eventual triumphwhereas
other concerns, such as family life, are often absent (pp. 2627, 278279). Lionels memoir
stands in sharp contrast to this characterization, as his memoir focuses on family life and
failure. Miller (2007) points out that the reader expects memoirs to be true or to be written
under what has been called the autobiographical pactthat is, the engagement that an
author takes to narrate his life directly . . . in a spirit of truth (p. 538). But, she points out,
the meaning of the spirit of truth has been pondered in recent years. James Freys (1994) A
Million Little Pieces, Miller notes, received a great deal of attention precisely because so
much of it turned out to be fiction. Ironically, though, Frey initially tried to publish his story
of substance abuse as a work of fiction, but no press would biteuntil he said it was a
memoir (A Million Little Lies 2006). In any case, it seems that Frey, whether through fact
or fiction, had a need to confess to such an extent that he confessed to sins that he did not
commit. Even if his sins were not literally truethey could have been emotionally true
(Miller 2007, p. 542)millions of readers felt compelled to read his confessions, perhaps in
search of their own redemption. The flourishing of the memoir in our own time lends
support to Allan Coles (2010) observation that many people today have a need to confess,
so much so that sometimes we artfully exaggerate our sins (cf. Gonzalez 2010) and that the

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line between fact and fiction is blurred and the categories of genre become somewhat
arbitrary or at least ambiguous.1
Lionel Dahmer (1994) had no need to exaggerate his story. He had no need to
exaggerate his sons sinsand, unlike all of the journalistic accounts of the Dahmer case,
virtually all of the sensationalist details are left out of this memoir, likely because they were
too painful for Lionel to include. The memoir itself, which he wrote in his mid-fifties (cf.
Rich 1994), is fairly longover 250 pages. He dedicated the book to the seventeen victims
and their families. On the dedication page, Lionel writes that it his hope that something
positive will come out of this book and that, while nothing can atone for such tremendous
loss, he notes that he intends to donate a portion of the books royalties to the families. In
the forward to the book, Thomas Cook notes that most of us are never called upon to
confront the truly monstrous (p. 12). We see pictures of such monsters in the tabloids,
Cook notes, but these monsters rarely are persons we know, much less our own sons or
daughters. This, he writes, is what separates Lionel Dahmer from the rest of us . . . and
constitutes his legitimate claim on our attention (p. 12). Cook also responds to the
potential criticism that this book is a marketing attempt by Lionel to profit from his sons
murders. Cook responds: I have seen no suggestion that money was the aim of thisfor
lack of a better wordconfession (p. 13, my emphasis). He continues, Instead, I have
seen a father try to come to terms both with the dreadful actions of his son, and with his
own actions as a father (p. 13).2
Notes on method and on the layout of this article
A couple of words on methodology will help to orient this paper. First, this paper is a
pastoral theological reading of Lionels memoir; it is not a psychobiography. Second,
1

In a three-volume series on evil, I contributed a chapter on Dahmer that made the case for a theological
diagnosis of evil with regard to Dahmer, drawing on the thought of Origen and Donald Capps. To understand
Dahmer, I argue that we need to go beyond psychology to theology, and that these perspectives, following
Paul Pruyser, ought to be a-positional (Carlin 2011). Much of what we know about Dahmer comes from
his own mouth, which may or may not be accurate. Should we trust the word of a skilled liarare these
confessions Dahmers own million little lies? In any case, Dahmer appeared to have a genuine need to
confess, even if he exaggerated his crimes for the sake of an insanity plea. Once Dahmer was caught, he said
that there was no point in lying anymore, and his confessionswhether true or notflowed freely. There is
some reason to think that his confessions were truthful, because one of them, for example, led to him being
charged with a murder in Ohio about which he was not being questioned (he led police to where he hid the
remains of the body). However, the truth of other confessions is ambiguous, and these were perhaps related
to his insanity plea. He confessed, in great detail, to murdering 17 boys and men, and he described his
motivations and practices, which included necrophilia, cannibalism, and ritually dismembering human
corpses and masturbating on severed heads and masturbating with the internal organs of his victims. He also
confessed that he would sometimes call the families of his victims, announcing to them that he had killed
their loved ones or pretending to be their loved ones, saying things like: Help me, Help me, Help me!
(Davis 1995, pp. 111112, 120). And he confessed that he performed a number of lobotomies on his
unconscious victims in an attempt to create human zombies so that he could have a permanent sexual partner
whom he could completely control. Forensic evidence was consistent with many of these details.
2
The fact that Lionel only donated a portion of the royalties might strike the reader as a bit insensitivewhy
only a portion of the books royalties? Is Lionel capitalizing on the horrors committed by his son? Lionels
ex-wife, Joyce Flint, believed so. Cuprisin (1994), in a story about a suicide attempt by Flint in 1994, notes
that Flint expressed outrage about Lionels financial motives in her will, seemingly because he excluded her
from any profits from the book. The issue of profit seems very complicated in this scenario. People, for
example, reported that Lionel received an advanced contract of $150,000 to write the memoir, which seems
opportunistic. Lionel claimed, however, that this would barely cover his legal fees (he has been sued at
least three times) (Chin 1994). Lionel also claimed that he wanted to use the money from the book to have
Jeff studied so that the cause of his illness could be discovered (Larry King Live 2004).

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William Runyan (1988) makes a distinction between psychohistory and history with
psychological content. Psychohistory systematically uses psychology in historical
reconstruction, whereas history with psychological content addresses psychological
phenomena in historical reconstruction. Examples of psychohistory include Eriksons
(1958) work on Luther and Cappss (2000) work on Jesus. An example of history with
psychological content includes Bouwsmas (1988) work on Luther. A similar distinction
can be made between psychobiography and biography with psychological content.
This paper is biographical in that it focuses on a memoir, but it addresses psychological
phenomena in the memoir without using psychology in a systematic way. I do so because
my interests here are pastoral, rather than psychological, as I pursue the theological
implications of Lionels question: What does it mean to be a father? The value of this
approach, an approach that focuses on psychological phenomena in a thematic rather than a
systematic way (and is analogous to history with psychological content), ensures that our
attention will remain on the memoir itself rather than explaining and applying this or that
psychological theory or definition.
This paper has several parts. The bulk of this paper explores the themes of grief,
shame, and regret as they are artistically represented in Lionels memoir; there are
major sections on each of these themes. After this exploration, a brief discussion of the
theological implications of Lionels confession of a failed fatherhood follows, which, I
suggest, has implications for how we think about God the Father as well as confession
and forgiveness.

Coming to terms with grief

If the police had told me that my son was dead, Lionel writes, I would have felt
differently about him (p. 25). If JeffLionel called his son Jeff, not Jeffrey, so I will
do so for most of this paper as wellwere one of the victims, Lionel could have
mourned the loss and eventually moved on. However, as Lionel puts it, I couldnt
remember him fondly. He was not a figure of the past. He was still with me, as he still
is (p. 26). At first Lionel could not believe that his son had done what the police said
that he did. He thought that there was some kind of misunderstanding. But, as the
evidence mounted, he then thought that someone more evil than my son must have
forced or manipulated him to do these things, someone who converted him into a
mindless demon (pp. 2627). As time passed, however, Lionel eventually came to
accept that no one made Jeff do what he had done, that he had acted alone. But, Lionel
writes, in some sense the police did come to tell him that his son was dead, or a part of
him, the part that should have made him think about the misery he was causing, and so
draw back from causing it (p. 28). This something missing in Jeff was Lionels first
profound admission to himself.
One can observe several ways in which Lionel came to terms with his grief by
writing this memoirnamely, by attempting to clarify the origins of his loss by writing
about early family life, by speculating about what may have been early warning signs
with regard to his sons deviant behavior, and by recognizing, in retrospect, the missed
opportunities he had, had to engage with his son. In terms of what might be viewed as a
mourning process, Lionel, by means of writing, was attempting to reduce the ambiguity of
his loss by clarifying it (Boss 1999) and also by constituting a new self-image in relation to
the loss (Leader 2008).

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Early family life

Lionel notes that he and his wife had gotten pregnant rather quickly, only 2 months after
their marriage, when they were in their mid-twenties. Neither of them was really quite
ready. He recalls that it was a difficult pregnancy. They were living in Milwaukee, and
Joyce had been working as a teletype instructor. But she eventually had to quit her job
because of the constant vomiting induced by her pregnancy. Staying at home, however, did
not help that much either, because the smells and noises of the apartment complex greatly
irritated her. Lionel was confused about all of Joyces complaints, as he did not think that
the smells or noises were out of the ordinary. In any case, 2 months before Jeff was born,
they moved in with Lionels parents in West Allis, Wisconsin.
Lionel recalls that Joyce developed a kind of muscle rigidity, a rigidity that physicians
were unable to diagnose. He writes, her whole body would grow rigid and begin to
tremble. Her jaw would jerk to the right and take on a similarly frightening rigidity. During
these strange seizures, her eyes would bulge like a frightened animal, and she would begin
to salivate, literally foaming at the mouth (p. 34). Her physician suggested that these
attacks were psychological, not physiologicalprobably tied to her being pregnant with
her first baby (p. 34). So the doctor prescribed Phenobarbital and other medications,
which, Lionel observed, did not improve her situation much. Lionel noted that sometimes
she would take as many as twenty-six pills a day (p. 36). He also noted that he had
trouble empathizing with Joyce, and he attributed this, in part, to their different emotional
makeup. He suggested that hers was marked by highs and lows, while his was a broad flat
plain (p. 35). I have always found it difficult, he writes, to read the exact emotional state
of another person (p. 36).
While Lionel was working on a masters degree in analytical chemistry at Marquette
University, Joyce would stay at home all day in his parents house, because she did not
have a drivers license. Lionel was away from home a lot. When Jeff was born, Lionel was
working at school. Since Deaconess Hospital was only a few blocks away, Lionel was able
to come over immediately. When he saw his son for the first time, he was struck by how
much his son looked like him. They named him Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. Jeff needed a minor
orthopedic surgery to correct an insignificant deformity in his legs, but he was otherwise
happy and healthy. Lionel recalls,
I often think of him in that initial innocence . . . . I consider his eyes, blinking softly,
and then I remember all the horrors they will later see. I dwell on the small, pink
hands, and in my mind I watch them grow larger and darker as I think about all that
they will later do. (p. 38)
He adds, It is impossible to reconcile these visions or to escape their sadness (p. 38). Part
of Lionels grief, then, is related to losing his sons innocence.
When Lionel and Joyce brought Jeff home, he remembers that a certain happiness set in,
one that lasted only for a few days. While the long and hard pregnancy was over, nursing
became a problem for Joyce, and she refused to do it. Living with Lionels parents proved
to be difficult as well, especially because Jeff was sleeping in the same room as Lionel and
Joyce. Joyce withdrew from the family and would often sleep in her room with Jeff.
Sometimes she would wander strangely from the house. In time it became obvious that they
had to move out, which they did.
Lionel began a doctoral program at Iowa State and moved his family to Ames, Iowa,
shortly after his acceptance in September 1962. This improved family life a great deal.

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Lionel and Joyce saw the doctoral program as a way to a better future. They had good times
with Jeff and with each other. But Lionel continued to spend a great deal of time in the lab
not only because of the amount of work he had to do, but also because he preferred to be
alone, not dealing with people. Chemicals, Lionel felt, were more predictable than people.
And so there was a distance that remained between Lionel and Joyce. They would fight
often, and sometimes their fights would become physical.
There was more to Lionels early family life than fighting and distancing; there were
good times, too. One memory that stands out for Lionel involves a time when riding with
Jeff on Lionels bicycle. Jeff would sit on the handlebars. On one such ride, Jeff noticed a
wounded nighthawk. He demanded that they stop and that they take the bird home to nurse
it to health. Lionel agreed. With milk and corn syrup, and later bread and hamburger, they
nursed the bird back to health over a period of a few weeks. Eventually the bird was
restored to health, and they took the bird out and released it. Lionel remembers, As it
spread its wings and rose into the air, we, all of usJoyce, Jeff, and myselffelt a
wonderful delight. Jeffs eyes were wide and gleaming. It may have been the single,
happiest moment of his life (p. 47).
In processing these early years of family life, Lionel came to terms with his grief by
clarifying, if only for himself, that his son was not born evil, and part of his grieving
involves mourning the loss of memories of his sons innocence. Somewhere along the way,
things went wrong or got out of control. Lionel offers some early possibilities in this regard:
his distance as a father; the pills his wife took during pregnancy; and early troubles in his
marriage. In any case, all was not lostyet.
Inward signs and early warnings
Looking back, Lionel sees signs, both in himself and in his son, that seem to foreshadow
the horrors that would one day become a reality. As a boy, Lionel recalls that he had an
obsession with fire. Lionel collected matchbooks, and he also developed a fascination with
making bombs. On account of these activities, Lionel nearly burned down his neighbors
garage. His father lectured him sternly. Thinking about this reprimand in retrospect, he sees
it as nave, because his father assumed that such drives can be controlled so easily, simply
as a matter of the will. He writes, I think my naivet protected me, as well, from an early
uneasiness about what might have been developing in my son (p. 52). Lionel suggests that
his own destructive impulsesfascination with fire and bombs, which are perhaps the
normal antics of boys but for Lionel were maybe something morewere channeled into
more productive ends: chemistry. But such channeling, in any case, never occurred for Jeff,
despite the fact that Lionel tried to introduce Jeff to various activities that might have
sufficed, including chemistry.
One early warning sign for Lionel, which is more or less universally recounted in stories
about Jeffs childhood, is that, at age four, Jeff played fiddle sticks with animal bones that
Lionel pulled out from under their house. Lionel writes that he looks back on Jeffs
childhood in a more macabre light now and that, in a certain sense, his childhood no
longer exists (p. 54). What was once trivial now haunts him. Jeffs questions about what
would happen if one were to cut out a belly-button, for example, or Jeffs breaking of the
windows of an abandoned building, are no longer just memoriesthey are warnings. Jeffs
enjoyment of playing ghost-in-the-graveyard and his captivation with the insides of gutted
fish take on a more sinister quality now for Lionel. Lionel lost Jeffs childhood.
If Lionel had to pinpoint a precise point when the emotional life of Jeff changed, it
would be in 1964, when Jeff suffered a double hernia. Jeff had an operation and, when he

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woke, he asked his mother if the doctors had cut off his penis. After this operation, his
mood flattened, and his physical appearance changed as well. His light hair became darker,
and his eyes became darker too. More than anything, Lionel recalls, he seemed to grow
more inward, sitting quietly for long periods, hardly stirring, his face oddly motionless
(p. 59). This, Lionel recalls, seemed to have been the first time that Jeff manifested the
overly inward traits that would mark his personality in years to come. Lionel does not
believe that Jeff was lost forever at this point, but, rather, that this operation significantly
affected Jeff. If Jeff thought that people were capable of cutting off his own penis,
perhaps this factored into Jeff claiming the power to dismember bodies as an adult.
Another key event that Lionel believes significantly affected Jeff was the familys move
in 1966, when Lionel finished his doctoral work. Joyce was pregnant as well, and, as with
her first pregnancy, she had problems. Jeff was not happy about the movehe had to leave
his cat behindand he reluctantly began first grade. His teacher noted that he was shy and
rigid, that he did not make friends easily, and that he seemed very unhappy. Lionel,
however, thought that this was normal, that any boy would experience discomfort and
disorientation after such a move. And, moreover, he recalls that when he himself was a boy,
he was shy and that, even to this day, he is somewhat uncomfortable in social situations.
Lionel, then, felt that he could identify with his son to a great extentthey both were shy,
and they both had destructive interests. And so when Lionel saw these traits in Jeff as a boy,
he thought that Jeff would manage just fine, just as he himself had done. However, Lionel
writes, I realize now that I was wrong, that Jeffs boyhood condition was far graver than
mine had ever been (p. 66). And he wonders: Was there any means by which I might
have pulled my son from the jaws that were beginning to devour him? (p. 66). What,
Lionel asks himself, could I have done to rescue my son?3
Another couple of memories from this period stand out for Lionel, memories that
became early warning signs. Both memories regard a friend that Jeff made when they
moved to Barberton. The boys name was Lee. One memory involved the fact that both Jeff
and Lee dressed as devils for Halloween; Lionel includes a picture of the boys in their
costumes in his memoir. Perhaps one reason the memory stands out is because the media
would later refer to Jeff as the devil. The other memory involved a schoolteacher who
befriended Jeff. One time Jeff caught some tadpoles and, out of affection for his teacher,
Jeff gave them to her. However, without telling Jeff, she gave them to Lee. When Jeff found
out, he was outraged, and, in an act of revenge, he snuck into Lees garage, found the
tadpoles, and poured oil into the water to kill them. As far as Lionel knows, this was Jeffs
first overt act of violence.
In retrospect, Lionel is able to see some early warning signs, and he is able to recognize
how his own experience as a boy prevented him from picking up on these signs. Jeff was
unhappy about moving; his affect noticeably changed after his hernia operation; he was shy
and did not make friends in school; he enjoyed playing with the dead body parts of animals;
3

Lionel recalls a story from Jeffs childhood where he did rescue his son. When he came home from work
one day, it appeared as though Jeff and his dog were outside playing in the yard. But, as he got closer, he
realized that Frisky was barking in a panic, and that Jeff was crying too. Jeff was stuck in a mud pit that had
developed in the yard, and he could not free himself. Lionel ran and rescued Jeff, and Jeff held him tightly
and gratefully: his whole being flooded with the immense relief that someone, at last, had seen his distress
and had finally pulled him from the sucking earth (p. 67). Lionel wonders if Jeff might have believed that I
would always be able to see his peril and snatch him from it (p. 67). This memory, too, seems to have been
affected by Jeffs crimes, as Lionel now seems to interpret this event as a metaphor for what he believes he
should have been able to do for Jeff in other situations. He wishes that he could have been able to pull Jeff
from the pits of mud and despair Jeff would find himself in as an adult.

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and he was capable of being cruel to animals. None of these signs, taken individually or
even collectively, suggest a serial killer in the making, but Lionels relationship to these
memories has been profoundly changed by the loss of his son. They are no longer just
memoriesthey have been turned into signsand this reworking of them is a part of
Lionels forging of a new self-understanding in relation to the emotional loss of his son.
This self-understanding is perhaps unfair to himselfit does not seem that Lionel missed
any legitimate warning signsbut perhaps there is value in exaggerated confessions: the
greater the sin, the greater the redemption. As Luke 7:47b puts it, But he who has been
forgiven little loves little. It appears as though for some, because the need for forgiveness
and redemptionthe need for loveis great, there is also a need to confess something
great. And so perhaps what is needed from pastoral counselors, in some cases, is a
witnessing of this need for redemption as expressed in exaggerated confessions (as opposed
to a challenging of the exaggerations). In time, when the need for redemption is not as
great, one might hope that another self-understanding, one more true to life, will develop
for those who need to confess great things.
Failed attempts at saving his son
Looking back, Lionel can see, whether appropriately or not, early warning signs in his son.
Beyond this, Lionel also recalls many overt problemsnot merely signsthat Jeff had,
mainly involving work and life direction, problems that Lionel tried to address but could
not do so effectively. Lionel writes about these failures as a father and tries to come to terms
with them.
By the time Jeff was a teenager, he realized that his son was having social problems. He
suggested many activities to Jeff in an attempt to give him some direction and some help.
Lionel suggested tennis, soccer, Boy Scouts, and archery. Jeff tried these, but none of these
interests lasted. Jeff had no interest in music or in art. But he did like to read science fiction
and Alfred Hitchcocks Horror Stories for Children. One activity that Lionel suggested
stuck with Jeff for a while: bodybuilding. Jeff was interested in this activity, and he lifted
consistently for about a year, enabling him to develop an impressive teenage frame.
Looking back on all of the activities that he offered to his son, Lionel now sees his efforts
as a bit nave, because the Jeff who might have been engaged by such things was already
gone (p. 79). What Jeff did like to do at this agewhat Lionel only discovered at Jeffs
trialinvolved riding around the neighborhood on his bike with plastic bags, collecting the
carcasses of dead animals. He built an animal sanctuary in the woods near his house,
complete with a dogs head on a stick.
What Lionel called Jeffs spiritual and emotional descent was not marked by
rebelliousness or overt signs of mental illness (pp. 8283). He writes, There was no
screaming in the night, no rambling speech, no moments of catatonic blankness. He didnt
hear or see things that werent there. He never exploded suddenly, never so much raised his
voice in either fear or anger (p. 82). On the contrary, Jeff was quiet and polite: He never
argued, but neither did he ever seem fully to agree with anything (p. 82). Relationships,
Lionel noted, did not seem to matter to Jeff. Nor did future plans, such as a career or
college. Lionel believes now that Jeff was overtaken by his desires, which he could not
communicate, and, to cope, Lionel suggests that Jeff became an alcoholic. His social life,
Lionel writes, which should have been expanding, narrowed to a circle that was no larger
than his mind, an imagined world in which his friends were phantoms, his lovers mere
lumps of unmoving flesh (p. 84).

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In 1976, Lionel and Joyces marriage, a marriage that had lasted for 16 years, finally hit
rock bottom. From Lionels perspective, a major part of the problem involved Joyces
mental and emotional issues. She was diagnosed with a severe anxiety state and, despite a
variety of medications and two institutionalizations, nothing really worked. The marriage
ended in 1977 when Joyce returned from her fathers funeral and said that their marriage
was as lifeless as her fathers body. She also revealed to Lionel that she had had an affair.
They divorced, and they fought bitterly over the custody of their youngest son, David.
Lionel reports that Joyce was awarded custody of David, though he doesnt explain why
this was the case. Given Joyces mental and emotional problems, and given the fact that she
was the one who had an affair, this seems curious. Perhaps Lionel has held something back
in his telling of the story that would explain this, and this should remind us that the idea of
truth in memoir is, to say the least, complicated (Miller 2007).
In any case, Lionel, distraught and living in a motel, met Shari Jordan and began a
relationship. They quickly married. Lionel describes Shari as completely different from
himin a positive way. Shari, Lionel explains, was capable of a wide array of emotions,
and she was skilled interpersonally. While Lionel was going through the divorce, he was
in an emotional state, and he thinks that he appeared to be more sensitive than he
usually is. He writes, But what Shari didnt know was that I was almost totally
analytical. . . . She could not have seen the other, more disturbing part of me, the part
that was often oblivious, that was not very emotional, that had a strange numbness at its
core (p. 92). He recognized this numbness that was so characteristic of his son:
I look at his face, particularly in photographs taken during his trial, and I see no
feeling in him whatsoever, no emotion, only a terrible vacancy in his eyes. I listen to
his voice as he describes inconceivable acts. It is a monotone, utterly unaccented and
unemotional. I see and hear my son, and I think, Am I like that? (p. 92)
The years between 1970 and 1976that is, when Jeff was in high schoolwere
particularly tense. Lionel writes, There were many arguments, and at times, to flee a house
that seemed on fire, Jeff, as Dave would tell me later, would walk out into the yard and slap
at trees with branches hed gathered from the ground (p. 89). Around others, however, Jeff
was passive. He and his father got into the routine of Lionel offering guidance, Jeff
passively accepting, and then Jeff ignoring the guidance. This was certainly the case for
college. Nothing seemed to matter to him.
Meanwhile, after the divorce, Joyce and David moved out of the house, leaving Jeff to
live alone. Lionel did not know this. After calling the house several times with no answer
Lionel finally decided to go to the house. When Lionel arrived, Jeff was there, having a
party. Lionel threw everybody out of the house. Jeff explained that Joyce had moved out
and took David with her. It took Lionel over a month to find them, despite numerous calls
to his lawyer regarding his visitation rights. Lionel and Shari then moved into the house,
and Jeff seemed to accept Shari. Things seemed to be going smoothly, though there were a
couple of problems: Jeff had been caught drinking, and some of Sharis jewelry turned up
missing. It was later found out that one of Jeffs friends had stolen the jewelry. When Shari
confronted Jeff about the jewelry, a flash of rage appeared in his eyes for a brief moment
but he quickly returned to his passive demeanor.
In writing this memoir, Lionel came to terms with the fact that he had not been able to
find a way either to punish or to correct Jeff (p. 99). What Lionel didnt know at the time,
but knows now, is that Jeff had already committed his first murder while he was living
alone in the house. With this new knowledge, Lionel sees himself differently, his son

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differently, and their relationship differently: How trivial my complaints must have seemed
to him at that time, and how small and inconsequential compared to what he had already
done (p. 100). And the same goes for his prodding Jeff about college and the future: How
odd and unrealizable all my talk of college and careers must have struck him after that
(p. 101). Significant loss requires a change of identity, a new self-understanding. As Joan
Didion puts it, when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse,
ourselves (quoted in Leader 2008, p. 148, my emphasis). Lionel, by means of writing, was
working out a new self-understanding as he mourned the son he thought he had and the
father he thought he was, which brings us to the theme of shame.

Coming to terms with shame

Not only can one observe Lionel coming to terms with grief in his memoir, but one also can
observe Lionel coming to terms with the shame of his sons various failures. While for
many years Lionel was able to convince himself that all was well with his son, certain
events demolished this perception. They include: 1) Jeffs problems with alcohol and the
related failures that they induced, such as flunking out of college and being discharged from
the army; 2) Jeffs habitual lying; 3) Jeffs arrests prior to his arrest for murder; and 4) Jeffs
arrest for murder.
A son who fails
Lionel tried to put him on a productive path in life, but, each time, alcohol derailed his son.
Upon graduating high school, Lionel prodded Jeff to attend Ohio State University. He
reluctantly agreed. Jeff lived in the dorms, and he had three other roommates. His first
semester, academically speaking, was a disaster: .45 grade point average. His highest grade
was a B- in archery. Most of his grades were Fs or incompletes. His roommates reported
that he abused alcohol every day. Lionel pulled him out of college and brought him back
home after this first and only semester in college. Jeff was embarrassed, and so, too, was
Lionel.
Once home, Lionel took Jeff to the mall for a few days, instructing him to find a job. On
one of these days, when Lionel arrived to take Jeff home, Jeff was drunk. Lionel refused to
take Jeff home in such a state, and so he left him there to sober up. He instructed Jeff to call
him when he was sober. But Jeff never called. So Lionel went back to the mall at 10 PM to
find him. Jeff wasnt there, but Lionel knew just where to look: jail. That is, in fact, where
Jeff was. The next day Lionel insisted that Jeff join the army to give him some structure and
discipline. He did.
Jeff left for the army at the end of January 1979. Lionel remembers that he did not see
Jeff for 6 months, but, when he did, the transformation was difficult to believe (p. 108).
He had become a handsome, broad-shouldered young man who smiled brightly when he
stepped off the bus. His hair was close-cropped, his clothes neat and orderly, and no
alcohol on his breath (p. 108). Once home, he helped out around the house quite a bit
chopping wood, raking leaves. The army, Lionel writes, had provided a structure for his
profoundly unstructured life (p. 110). And Jeff flourished.
Or so it appeared. Just months before his term with the army was complete, Jeffs trunk
appeared at Lionels doorstep and, a few days after that, his honorable discharge papers. He
was thrown out of the army on account of his alcoholism. The papers did not indicate where
Jeff was. After a month or so, Jeff called from Miami, where he was working in a pizza

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place. He called every now and then, the final call asking for money. Instead of sending
money, Lionel and Shari bought him a plane ticket home. Jeff came home, and he was set
in his old patterns of drinking and getting arrested for public drunkenness. Lionel and Shari,
who had insisted that he come home, now insisted that he leave, and they sent him to stay
with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin.
Lionel exercised a great deal of control over Jeffs life, issuing many commands: Go to
college, Get a job, Join the Army, Come home, and Go to grandmas. Jeff, it
seemed, did not have the power to resist his fathers commands, but he did have it in his
power to fail everything that his father commanded that he do.
A son who lies
Lionel kept Jeffs problems with alcohol more or less to himself. This is not something, for
example, that he would talk about at work. And he continued to view his sons problems
with alcohol as a behavioral problem, something that, with some effort, could and would be
overcome. His sons problem with lying, however, was a different matter, because chronic
lying seems to be more of a character flaw than a behavioral flaw. But just as Lionel lived
in denial about the depth of his sons problems with alcohol, he also continued to make
excuses for his sons lies.
When Lionel and Shari visited Jeff in college, he appeared to be doing well. And when
they visited him in Wisconsin, he appeared to be doing well then too. Jeff attended church
with his grandmother, he helped her around the house, and he held down a job. He also was
attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. This was another period of great hope that
Lionel had for Jeff. What Lionel didnt know was that Jeffs grandmother would call to talk
with Shari about Jeffs odd behavior, about, for example, a male manikin she found in his
closet. When Lionel did find out and confronted Jeff about this, he said that it was only a
prank. But the episode prompted Lionel to take greater control of Jeffs lifeagain. He
signed him up at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. Jeff agreed to go, Lionel paid the
tuition, but then Jeff did not attend a single class. When Lionel found out and angrily inquired
about this, Jeff explained that he had finally gotten a job that he liked. This, oddly enough,
turned out to be true. Lionel writes, He had become that most artful of all deceivers, one who
mixes falsehood with just a pinch of truth (p. 122). And, moreover, his lies all seemed
relatively minor to LionelJeff was hurting no one but himself, or so Lionel thought.
Then Jeffs grandmother made a more disturbing discovery: she found a gun under Jeffs
bed. When Lionel inquired about this, Jeff explained that it was only a target pistol.
Nevertheless, Lionel returned to Milwaukee to deal with the situation. The gun turned out
to be .357 Magnumhardly a target pistol! But Jeff had an answer for that, too (the range,
he explained, accepted all types of guns). Lionel took the gun from Jeff, sold it, and gave
the money back to Jeff.
Jeff manifested other strange behavior as well, but he always had an answer. He would
disappear on the weekends (his explanation was that he liked to go to Chicago). On at least
one occasion, Jeff brought a strange man home to spend the night at his grandmothers
house (he explained that they had drunk too much together). There were strange odors
coming from the basement (Jeff explained that he like to experiment with chicken parts and
dead raccoons). And Lionel became accustomed to believing Jeffs lies. He writes,
I allowed myself to believe Jeff, to accept all of his answers regardless of how
implausible they might seem. I allowed myself to believe that my son had not
intended to do anything illegal with the pistol and that the smells my mother had

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detected in the basement and the garage had come from the desiccated remains of a
dead raccoon. (p. 127)
Lionel continues, More than anything, I allowed myself to believe that there was a line
in Jeff, a line he wouldnt cross. It was the line that divided the harm he did to himself from
the harm that he might do to someone else (p. 127). Lionel explains that his life became
oriented around avoidance and denial: I had grasped at every hope, evaded every
unpleasant truth (p. 128). And he notes that his interactions with Jeff took on a certain
routine:
We spoke, but we did not converse. I made suggestions. He accepted them. He gave
excuses. I accepted them. It was as if we had agreed to speak only in half sentences,
communicating only what it was safe to communicate, and never moving to penetrate
the wall that had come to exist between us. (p. 128)
There was, Lionel explains, a shield between them: a shield which both of us needed if
we were to communicate at all (p. 128). This shield protected them from dealing with the
shame in both of their lives, and, unlike the early warning signs from Jeffs childhood,
Jeffs behavior as an adult were in fact signs that Lionel should have paid more attention to,
but the shield of shame prevented this.
A son who breaks the law
Unlike his problems with alcohol and his tendencies to lie, it was more difficult for Lionel
to rationalize or to ignore Jeffs problems with the law. It was through the law that Lionel
finally came to discover that there were many things that he did not know about his son. As
he put it, there were far, far more things that I did not know about my son than I did know
about him (p. 131). Before Jeffs first trial for murder, he didnt know, for example, that
Jeff had been arrested twice for indecent exposureonce in 1982, and once in 1986.
Lionel notes that Jeff moved out of his grandmothers house on September 26, 1988.
Lionel did not object to this because he felt that Jeff was old enough to live on his own and
because Jeffs relationship with his grandmother had become strained on account of Jeffs
odd behavior, such as building a satanic altar in his bedroom. On the day that he moved out,
Jeff paid a young boy to pose nude for him, he drugged him, and he then molested him. He
let the boy go after this. The boy then went to the police, and Jeff was arrested. Lionel
writes, I realized for the first time that Jeff had, in fact, crossed that line which divides
willful self-destruction from the equally willful destruction of another (p. 134). Lionel, in
any case, saw to it that Jeff was bailed out, and Jeff assured him that nothing like that would
ever happen again. Jeff explained that he didnt know that the boy was a child (a lie), and
that if he did touch his penis, it was only inadvertently (another lie). But Jeff apparently did
not have an explanation as to why he thought it was acceptable to drug the boy. The court
ordered that Jeff move back in with his grandmother, which he did. Lionel reports that he
and Jeff continued together in their co-conspiracy of silence, as though they had vowed
never to talk about such matters. Doing so would have required confronting shame.
When the day of sentencing for the molestation charge approached, Lionel returned to
Wisconsin to support Jeff in court. On the day prior to the sentencing, Lionel had
discovered a wooden box in Jeffs room, about one square foot. The box was locked. Lionel
asked Jeff to open it. Jeff refused. They had an argument about it, but Jeff pleaded: Cant I
have just one foot of space to myself? (p. 136). Inside the box was a human head and male
genitalia. Jeff knew that everything would be over if his father would have opened the box

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then and there. Jeff was not forced to open the box. Lionel seemed to continue holding out
hope for his son, and Jeff continually took advantage of this hope. Lionel writes,
[I]t was hard to believe that this same son would never be more than he seemed to bea
liar, an alcoholic, a thief, an exhibitionist, a molester of children. I could not imagine how
he had become such a ruined soul, and, incredible as it now seems to me, I let myself
believe that even all these grotesque and repulsive behaviors could be thought of as a
stage through which he would one day pass. (p. 139)
In the eyes of parents, Lionel writes, children always seem just a blink away from
redemption (p. 139). And this is what Lionel was hoping for in the courtroom: a turning
point for Jeff, a chance for redemption. In the courtroom, Lionel describes his key emotion
as hope, but now, looking back, it seems that he is expressing grief for what his son could
have been and shame over what his son actually turned out to be: a liar, an alcoholic, a
thief, an exhibitionist, a molester of children (p. 139).
At this point Lionel realized that Jeff had sunken beyond his reach. He realized now that
Jeff needed help. Someone other than himself had to save him, be it God, the State, a
counselor, a friendsomeone. Lionel now saw Jeffs problems in light of alcoholismthat
is, he more or less reduced Jeffs problems to alcoholism. He believed that, if only someone
could fix his alcoholism, then Jeff would be okay. It was the alcohol that made him do all of
these things, Lionel needed to believe. So convinced of this was Lionel that he wrote to
Jeffs lawyer and Jeffs judge to try to persuade them that Jeff should serve his whole
sentence, since Jeff had not received treatment for his alcoholism while serving his
sentence. Neither the judge nor the lawyer was convincedJeff was released early. He
stayed with his grandmother briefly, and then moved to the now infamous Oxford
Apartments, where Jeff committed the majority of his murders.
Lionel quickly returned to his stations of hope, denial, and avoidance. He and Shari
visited Jeff in his new apartment, and they were impressed. It was very neat and clean, even
the bathroom. Lionel noticed a couple of odd things, though, such as the large freezer in the
kitchen (Jeff explained that he liked to stock up on meat when it went on sale to save
money) and the lock on the inside of his apartment that separated his bedroom from the
living room (extra security on account of the dangerous neighborhood, Jeff further
explained). On a later visit, Lionel commented on the security camera that Jeff had
installedthere are a lot of robberies around here, and I dont want anyone to break
in, Jeff said (p. 145). Rather than confronting Jeff on these matters in a more pressing
way, and rather than truly engaging his son, Lionel took Jeffs word at face value so as
to avoid the conflict and the shame that such confrontation would inevitably provoke.
A son who murders
Just as Jeffs arrest for molestation forced Lionel to see Jeff in a new light, Jeffs arrest for
murder shattered his view of his son and his view of himself as a father. Lionel made a
phone call to Jeffs apartment on July 23, 1991. Jeff did not pick up. Instead, a detective
picked up, and he explained to Lionel that they were there investigating a homicide. Lionel
asked if his son had been murdered. The detective said, Jeff is alive and well (p. 148).
Confused and still in denial, Lionel called his mother to tell her Jeff had been involved in
something terrible. She already knew, or had some idea, because the police were already at
her house. At that point, Lionel writes, I began to consider the possibility that my son
was not after all the victim of a crime, not one who had been murdered, but a
murderer (p. 158). At this point the Deputy Chief picked up the phone and confirmed

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this possibility. This, of course, was very hard for Lionel to accept. Indeed, it would
have been easier for him to accept that his son had been murdered. But I had been told
something else altogether, Lionel writes, that my son had murdered someone else
(pp. 159160).
Shortly thereafter, Lionel called Jeffs lawyer, Gerald Boyle, and Boyle was worked up.
He had been getting calls from the press and he had been talking to the police. Boyle
informed Lionel that the police had found body parts from at least three different persons in
Jeffs apartment. What, Lionel writes, does a father do with such information? (p. 162).
Lionel continues, I did what I had always done. I collapsed into a strange silence that was
neither angry nor sullen nor sorrowful, but just a silence, a numbness, a terrible,
inexpressible emptiness (p. 162). Lionel took refuge in his laboratory. He writes,
For the next few hours, my inner world took on the sinister atmosphere of a dark and
desperately guarded secret. It was not a feeling that was new to me, however, but one
which, over the years, I had grown accustomed to. In 1988, when Jeff had been
arrested for child molestation, I had kept it a secret. I had also kept a secret all the
other things I learned after that. I had kept Jeffs earlier arrest for indecent exposure a
secret. I had kept his homosexuality a secret, his addiction to pornography, his theft of
a department-store manikin, everything a secret. Without knowing it, a kind of
secrecy had begun to entomb my life, turning the deepest part of it into a basement
hiding place. (p. 163)
The very notion of such sudden, terrible, and deeply personal exposure, Lionel writes,
worked to keep me in a state of incomprehensible denial (p. 164).
Lionel had hoped that there was some kind of misunderstanding, that someone other
than Jeff did these things, that Jeff was framed, or that someone made him do it. These
hopes and denials lifted Lionel into a state of unreal and dreamy suspension (p. 164). But
then hot flashes of truth would pull him back to reality. But, Lionel writes, which
truth? The truth that my son was a murderer? Or the truth that my life was tied to his,
sinking in the same quicksand? (p. 165). Lionel confesses, I know [now] that my
essential emotional response that first horrible day was based upon a fear of being
personally exposed, my life wholly and nakedly revealed, and the excruciating
embarrassment that such a process would cause me (p. 165, my emphasis). In the days
that followed, Lionel realized that he and his wife
were no longer merely parents, and we never would be again. We were the parents,
and I, in particular, was the father of Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey, not Jeff. Jeffrey Dahmer
was someone else, the formal public name for a man who was, at least to me, still
Jeff, still my son. (p. 167)
Their newfound fame had practical consequences for their everyday life, as they were
compelled to use different names when staying in motels.
A striking reflection of Lionels shame can be observed in the fact that he refused
Boyles request to appear with him in a press conference. Lionel did not even watch the
press conference. He writes, My mother, now in her eighties, had lived an upright and
honest life. She had never harmed anyone, and I did not want her to see my face on a
television broadcast, [to] see me standing mutely before the cameras, a public spectacle,
broken and pitiful and helpless (p. 170). Lionel notes that when Boyle asked him to stand
up that day for the press conference, he experienced the conflict between these two roles in
an acute manner: My role as a father demanded that I stand with Boyle. My role as a son,
as guardian of my familys name, demanded that I not (p. 172; cf. Capps 2002 on men and

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the religion of honor, especially as related to mothers approval). His response was to go to
sleep, to be a son rather than to be a father.
Now, however, it seems as though Lionel regretsthis theme will be explored below
his decision not to stand with his son, and I take this to be a central insight of the book. He
writes,
I have since come to understand that at that timeand perhaps it is my doom to be so
foreverI was a creature of consciously selected roles. Rather than having developed
a natural fatherhood, I had learned, as if by rote, what a father should do. He should
provide physical support. He should give advice. He should take his son to the fishing
hole. To some extent, I had learned the same behaviors as regards my obligations as a
son. I should visit my mother. I should call her on the telephone. I should send her a
birthday card. Both as father and as son, I was the player of a well-learned part.
(p. 171)
Lionel feels that he has not been a father, that he has been role-playing the scripts given
to him by his culture (on the scripts the men are given to play, see Dittes 1985). He felt that
his fatherhood had been reduced to . . . a set of routine and relatively undemanding tasks
(p. 153). Jeffrey Dahmer, the murderer, was someone whom Lionel did not know, and he
was far awayboth geographically and personallyfrom Lionel.
Lionel notes that Jeff was initially placed in the Milwaukee County Jail. Because of a
few statements that Jeff made, he was placed on suicide watch. When Lionel went to visit
him, the exchange was strained and awkward, neither of them knowing quite what to say.
Jeff said sorry repeatedly and Ive really done it this time, but all of these things, Lionel
noted, were without emotion and seemed insincere. He looked as if he felt he did not
deserve it, Lionel wrote (p. 180). As they continued their exchange, Lionel offered a subtle
rationalization of Jeffs crimesnamely, that he was mentally ill. Lionel thought that Jeff
just needed treatment, as he did for his alcoholism, but this time for mental illness (for a
discussion of Dahmers diagnoses, see Carlin 2011).
Although Jeff kept saying sorry, Lionel notes that Jeff remained emotionless and that
he did not seem to have any genuine sense of regret. He writes, It was at that precise
moment that I actually glimpsed the full character of my sons madness (p. 183), that is,
when it became apparent that it was unclear what Jeff was actually sorry forwas he sorry
for the families, the victims, or his own family? Staring into this deadness put Jeffs
childhood in a different light: his general remoteness no longer looked like shyness,
but like disconnection (p. 184). And, as strange as it seems, this experience of
disconnection may have been one of the first moments of true connection with Jeff that
Lionel had experienced, because, as Lionel writes, for the first time in his adult life,
[Jeff] presented himself to me as he really was (p. 184).
Then Lionel had a moment of self-realizationthat he, too, was like Jeff, that he, too,
was a man who found it hard to express his emotions, and that he, too, was one who
focused on the minutiae of social life and often lost track of its overall design; who relied
on others to direct his responses to life because he could not trust his own sense of the way
it really worked (pp. 184185). Jeff, Lionel realized, was perhaps only the deeper, darker
shadow of himself (p. 185). Through confronting this aspect of Jeff, Lionel was able to
discover something about himself, something that he had previously denied. And it was not
easy to see thisin himself or in Jeffbecause he had become accustomed to denying the
troublesome parts of Jeff. This introspection marks Lionels coming to terms with shame.
As one might expect, Lionel and Sharis life became characterized by publicity. Lionels
mother had to move from her house because embarrassing things kept happening: endless

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phone calls, relentless ringing of the doorbell, and ongoing egging of the house. Lionel and
Shari received their share of phone calls and mail as well. And, on the popular talk shows,
hosts and guests were talking about the Dahmers. They were, as Lionel put it,
transformed into a symbol (p. 193).
While Lionel was able to overlook Jeffs lies and his drinking problems, and while he
was even able to see Jeffs previous run-ins with the police as matters that would blow over,
Lionel, when confronted with something that would not blow over, experienced a shame
that could not be denied or ignored. He had been publicly humiliated on account of his
sons actions. And while his previous strategy with regard to shame was secrecy, his
approach now is confessional, and such an approach to confessing shame in a memoir
could very well go a long way in steeling up a new identity (on communicating shame and
steeling up ones identity, see Capps 2007).

Coming to terms with regret

While the themes of loss and shame are prominent in Lionels memoir, the most poignant
theme is regret. This experience receives the least amount of attention in the memoir,
perhaps signaling that it is the most painful and most difficult to write about. But it is as
though Lionel took to writing this whole book to come to terms with a single event that he
regretted, an interview in 1991.
Lionel felt compelled to give interviews about his son because the press had called Jeff
a monster, a ghoul, [and] a demon (p. 199). While he did not want to make excuses for
his son, or to defend his actions, Lionel did want to remind people that there had been
another Jeff, and he wanted to resurrect this boy (p. 200). In the first interview that he
gave, Nancy Glass asked him, Do you forgive your son? Lionel responded by saying that
was a tough question. He then went on to say: I cannot say that I forgive him (p. 200).
Lionel regrets this statement. He writes, Watching the video, one can detect a man whose
life has been stung by shame, who wants the spotlights to go off so that he can return to the
shadows, but it is hard to find a father racked by grief and care (p. 201). When the chips
were down, Lionel feels as though he was not able to stand by his son, just like he was not
able to stand with Jeffs lawyer during the initial press conference about Jeffs murders.
Later, however, Lionel was able to stand by his son. He felt that he and Shari needed to
attend Jeffs trial because they felt it important to show Jeff that we had not abandoned
him (p. 209). As the trial proceeded, Lionel heard, for the first time, the graphic details of
Jeffs crimes, because revealing these details was a part of the defense strategy to
demonstrate that Jeff was insane. Lionel writes, I felt that the acts being described were
those of someone I could not possibly know, much less someone I had brought into the
world (p. 211). He continues, it was as if I were being forced to watch a horror film I did
not want to watch, from which I could learn nothing, and from which I wanted to escape
(p. 211). Lionel notes that Jeffs first trial for murder ended on February 14, 1992, and that
the sentence came the following day. The defense of insanity failed. Jeff was found guilty,
and Lionel notes that Jeff seemed frightened and shocked by this turn of events. Lionel held
him after the trial, told Jeff that he loved him, and he said a prayer for him (p. 233). Jeffs
final residence, it was now determined, would become the Columbia Correctional
Institution in Wisconsin.
In the weeks and months after the trial, Lionel noticed that his role as a father had
become reduced even more. He felt that it was both my duty and my desire to keep in

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touch with Jeff, despite the distance, to help him in any way I could (p. 235). But as his
role as a father became less demanding, his role as a son became more demanding, as his
mother was having a hard time adjusting to her new apartment.
In prison, Jeff had been prescribed Prozac, and, after a few months, Lionel notes that
Jeffs mood improved a great deal (p. 245). Jeff received hundreds of letters in the mail.
Teenagers wrote him. Both women and men wrote him love letters. Some were seeking his
autograph. Others would send him Jeffrey Dahmer jokes. Some of his mail was religious,
from people trying to convert him. Others sought Jeffs help and guidance, as many of
them, Lionel notes, believed that in some bizarre way [that] my son could rescue them
from lives in which they felt entrapped (pp. 240241). An anonymous donor deposited
$100 in Jeffs prison account. Jeff used this money to buy 13 books dealing with the creation
vs. evolution debate, and, as noted in the introduction, Jeff did convert to Christianity.
Practical details needed to be handled after Jeff went to prison, such as cleaning up Jeffs
apartment. Lionel discusses the symbolic meaning of collecting Jeffs belongings after the
trial. It occurred to him that this was something that he had been through several times
before: cleaning up his things after he flunked out of college, cleaning up his things after he
had been sentenced for child molestation, and, now, cleaning up his things for the
penultimate time (pp. 251252). As he went through his things, he found videos,
reading material (mostly pornographic), music, and food supplements, alongside bags
and boxes of junk food. There were cans of beer and bottles of alcohol, chemicals for
cleaning and for destructive purposes, as well as ordinary items that, Lionel notes,
became sinister: butcher knives, chemical-resistant gloves, a drill, barbeque sauce, and a
meat tenderizer (p. 248). Nothing, Lionel writes, could better serve as the metaphor
for those who live their lives under the shadow of a troubled child than this exhausted,
but unending sense of cleaning up (p. 252). He continues, But what could I have
cleaned up of my own? What could I have gathered up and put away so that Jeff might
not have gotten to it? (p. 252).
Near the end of the book, Lionel returns to a question that he addressed earlier in the
book, and this, as noted, seems to be the central issue. He recalls the first interview that he
had regarding his son. In that interview, he was asked whether he forgave his son, and, as
noted, Lionel said no. But if he had to do it over, he would answer yes. He adds: But
should he forgive me? (p. 253, my emphasis). Lionel isnt sure, because he believes that it
is quite possible that the urges that compelled Jeff into perversity had their origins in
himself. He offers other possibilities in the closing lines of the book: the medications that
his ex-wife took during pregnancy; Jeffs struggles with alcoholism; the disordered family
relations of Jeffs childhood; society; and television. It seems as though Lionel is
suggesting that, on some level, he could have and should have protected Jeff from all of
these things, and that, finally, he failed as a father, because his acts of omission and
commission were too great (p. 255). But Lionel is not sure what he would have done
differently: Fatherhood, Lionel writes, remains, at last, a great enigma (p. 255).
These confessions, I suggest, helped Lionel, as Cole (2010) suggests, to externalize sin
and therefore ease its burden (pp. 89). Expressing these regrets may have also helped
Lionel to develop a deeper sense of character (cf. Carlin and Capps 2009). Fatherhood,
Lionel now knows, is not about going fishing with your son, giving advice, and providing
for him. And while fatherhood still remains a great enigma to him, he knows now, at least,
even if it is too late, part of fatherhood involves standing with your son. Perhaps
fatherhood, Lionel will one day discover, also means that one cannot save ones son from
everything.

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Implications for pastoral theology

Theology should not be formalistic and abstracted from human experience. It should be, as
James Dittes (1996) suggests, attuned to the heartthrobs of the soul. Art, in many ways, is
attuned to the heartthrobs of the soul, which is why theology, especially pastoral theology,
should pay attention to art. In other writings where I have written about Godwhere, for
example, I have suggested that God is melancholic (Carlin 2009a) and gender confused
(Carlin 2010)I am sure that my work would not stand up to the theological critique of
systematic or dogmatic theologians. But this is precisely my point. That is, talking about
God is not, or should not be, a matter of logic or systems; talking about God, rather, is
about expressing the heartthrobs of the soul as faithfully and honestly as we can. And what
better way of doing theology than by appreciating art and expressing ones own theology as
art and with art?4 Lionels memoir is an artistic expression of such heartthrobs, painful
throbs of grief, shame, and regret. I suggest that his experience of fatherhood can teach us
something about the Fatherhood of Godor what we might hope for in the Fatherhood of
God.
Standing with your son
Preachers and theologians appropriately often focus on what the crucifixion meant for
Jesus, and how the suffering of Jesus is relevant to our own lives. But there is also a model
of divine fatherhood here, one in which God the Father forsakesand perhaps abandons
God the Son on the cross, as reflected in the cry of Jesus on the cross: My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). As a boy, I was taught that Jesus took on all
the sin of the world, but because God the Father is pure, He cannot be in the presence of
sin; therefore, God the Father had to abandon God the Son on the cross when He took on
the sin of the world. God is pure and must remain so, or so I was taught.
One does not have to focus on purity when making the point that God the Father
abandoned God the Son on the cross. Indeed, summarizing Jurgen Moltmanns argument in
The Crucified God, Carl Braaten (1976) writes,
If there are any who are poor and oppressed, then God in Christ has entered into
solidarity with them. If there are any that are forsaken and abandoned, then the one
who knew what it meant to be rejected by his Father identifies with their misery.
(p. 114)
The point here is that God the Son suffers with us, no matter what we are going through,
because He has known the greatest suffering of all. While this is intended to be a comfort to
those who are suffering, could not the unintended message that is being sent to men and to
boys turn out to be that they, too, should suffer alone, just as Jesus did, and that fathers, too,
need to let their sons suffer alone so that they can become real men?
Lionels memoir suggests that the models of masculinity and fatherhood that his culture
gave him communicated the message to him that he should make it on his own, and that his
son, too, should make it on his own as well. The image of God the Son suffering alone on
the cross would reinforce this cultural message. Interpretations of atonement theories, or
interpretations of the crucifixion, can be criticized on a number of grounds (see, e.g., Brock
4

This approach to pastoral theology is what Capps and I have attempted to do with the theory of Limbo,
which, when understood literally and rigidly, posed serious problems for the Roman Catholic Church (Capps
and Carlin 2010).

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and Parker 2001), but I suggest that Lionels memoir offers a different slant on the issue
namely, the image of Jesus suffering alone on the cross is inappropriate for fathers and sons
in our own contemporary American cultural context because it reinforces, even if it does
not necessarily inculcate, the idea that fathers should not stand with their sons, that their
sons should suffer alone. Or, if God the Father did leave God the Son to suffer alone on the
cross, perhaps God the Father, like Lionel, now has considerable regret. I am not, to be
sure, suggesting a recovery of some form of modalism or patripassianism here, but I am
suggesting that it is not enough simply to say that the Father himself suffers the pains of
abandonment (Moltmann, quoted in McGrath 2001, p. 278; for more on this critique, see
Johnson 2005, p. 81) because this is akin to saying, when a father is about to physically
discipline his son, This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.
Lionels experience yields several lessons for pastoral theology. The first lesson is, as
noted, we should not accept uncritically the models of masculinity that our culture gives us.
Lionel felt that, because he wanted to be a dutiful son, he neglected to be a faithful father
and religion certainly informed Lionels sense of duty. The second lesson is that fathers
should make every effort to listen to their sons and they should not assume that their sons
will figure out the problems of life alone; this is the central message that Lionel would
communicate in his interviews after his sons arrest and death (see, e.g., Larry King Live
2004). And the third lesson is that theology needs to pay more attention to shame than to
guilt, as shame seemed to be the deeper emotion in both Lionels life and his sons life (cf.
Capps 1992). Pastoral theology needs to correct theological understandings of God that
perpetuate constricting models of masculinity and fatherhood and, instead, promote
models of masculinity and fatherhood that enable solidarity, both with ones son and
with ones selfeven in the face of great sin and deep shame.
Perhaps a guiding theological metaphor or biblical example that might inform
contemporary pastoral theologyone instead of the metaphor of God the Father
abandoning God the Soncan be found in the crucifixion account in the Gospel of John.
Jesus, on the cross, looked down at his mother and at the disciple whom he loved and said:
Woman, here is your son. Then he said to his disciple, Here is your mother. And from
that hour the disciple took her into his own home (John 19:2627). Capps (1992) suggests
that the Christian community began before [Jesus] breathed his last breath, as a woman
and a man beheld one another (p. 165). He continues, By inviting them to behold one
another, even as he was, even then, beholding them, Jesus exercised a new kind of
authority, and ushered in a new era in human relating (p. 166). One can only wonder how
different our own models of masculinity and fatherhood might have been if JosephJesuss
fatherwould have been the one beholding in this story. And one might also wonder
how different our own models of masculinity and fatherhood might have been if God
the Father were there during Jesuss greatest hour of need and his deepest experience of
shame. If either father were there, perhaps fathers and sons today would be, or could
be, more comfortable exposing themselves to each other (cf. Dykstra 2005), beholding
one another, or, at least, standing with each other.
What, finally, about confession and forgiveness in Lionels memoir? Cole (2010)
believes that most people want and even need to disclose their personal pain, especially
their transgressions (p. 4). Lionels confessions support Coles belief. Lionel pours |out
pages and pages of confessions, not only about his failures as a father, but also about the
sins of his childhood. Cole also suggests that, when we confess our sins, we experience
relief, healing, grace, and gratefulness (p. 4). This is harder to see in Lionels confessions,
as it is not clear that Lionels confessions allowed him to forgive himself. Indeed, the
memoir ends on a note of failure and confusion. But it is clear that Lionel was able to

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forgive his sonwhether this was appropriate or notin ways that he was unable to do
when his son was arrested for murder, and, strikingly, Lionel asks whether his son should
forgive him, because Lionel believes, after much introspection, that he passed along a
genetic propensity for destruction to his son. If works are necessary for forgiveness, then
Lionelafter confessing and processing his grief, shame, and regretwas able to work out
his forgiveness by taking his final stand with his son in the form of a book that required a
lot of emotional work; and in this sense the memoir may be viewed, theologically, as a form
of penance, not for his sons sins, but for his own failures as a father. One hopes that Lionel
was able to, or someday will be able to, experience forgiveness. Perhaps it is not Lionels
place to forgive his son for his sons actions, but, in any case, it seems that Lionel has
provided us with a more divine model of fatherhoodone that is not hung up on family
honor or solitary understandings of masculinityby being willing, in the end, to stand with
his son. We might hope for God the Father to do the same for all of His sons.
Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Donald Capps, Henry Strobel, and Cathy Flaitz for
reading a previous draft of this paper. Portions of this paper were presented in three venues, which made it
stronger: 1) the Psychiatry Department at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston; 2) a writing
group in Houston, TX; and 3) the Working Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology.

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