New York : Abrams ComicArts, 2012
221 p. : chiefly ill. ; 25 cm.
This is an excellent graphic novel - profound and disturbing. It revisits one of the most lurid serial killer stories - that of Jeffrey Dahmer - but manages to avoid being lurid or sensational at all. Instead it is a compassionate telling of the middle and high school years of the young Jeff Dahmer, told by Derf Backderf, a classmate and erstwhile pal of Dahmer.
The book presents a very honest portrait of the lives of young people in an Ohio community in the mid 1970s. Backderf is able to retell the rather low humor and insensitive world of high school guys he hangs out with - but with a deft and sensitive touch. He is also able to subtly convey the outrageous ways in which all the adults of Bath, Ohio ignore the clear signs that Dahmer was an extremely troubled young man - especially his intense alcohol abuse during school hours.
To me the greatest strength of this graphic novel is Backderf's ability to have compassion for Dahmer, and yet not excuse or minimize the horrid crimes that he committed. Within the telling of My Friend Dahmer, there is never a moment where one feels like Backderf is trying to forgive or excuse what Dahmer did. However, he is able help the reader consider Dahmer as a human being - one with a history in a real time and a very real place - albeit, one who eventually became a merciless and grotesque killer of over a dozen young men.
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