"Lionel sought to 'peer not just into the soul of his son but into his own'..."

"... the British author Will Self wrote in [a review of the 1994 memoir, 'A Father’s Story']. 'Throughout, the sense of someone constitutionally ill-equipped for introspection of any kind groping toward a vile realization is gripping.'... [H]e wrote vividly about the uncanniness of seeing Jeffrey’s face, which looked so much like his own, staring at him from the front page of a newspaper, and about revisiting old memories. 'As I recall him in his infancy, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of helpless dread,' Mr. Dahmer wrote. '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, of how stained they will become with the blood of others.'"

From "Lionel Dahmer, Who Agonized About Raising a Serial Killer, Dies at 87/The father of Jeffrey Dahmer, he wrote a memoir that one reviewer said sought to 'peer not just into the soul of his son but into his own'" (NYT).

From the Will Self review of the memoir:

Throughout, the sense of someone constitutionally ill-equipped for introspection of any kind groping toward a vile realization is gripping. Lionel Dahmer comes across -- as he presumably intends to -- as an emotionally and spiritually absent parent. A chemist who describes his emotional makeup as "a broad, flat plain," he buried himself in the laboratory where "the ironclad laws of science governed," rather than face up to the "chaotic" world of human relationships and to the impact that his disintegrating marriage to a seriously depressed woman was having on his younger son....

Lionel Dahmer writes about a recurrent dream in which he is aware of having committed a violent murder but with no knowledge of why, and then identifies it as a wellspring of homicidal intent that he shares with his son. I have such a recurrent dream, and I would wager that many reading this do as well. "I see and hear my son," he writes at another point, "and I think, 'Am I like that?' " I can think of no better place to begin the much-needed examination of the dark side of our natures than with a careful reading of these two remarkable books.

I considered eliding the sentence "I have such a recurrent dream, and I would wager that many reading this do as well." It's a big distraction, but maybe it's the most interesting thing here. What if your son became a serial murder, would you, peering into your soul, see a wellspring of homicidal intent?