Angelhead: My Brother's Descent into Madness
by Greg Bottoms
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Biography & Autobiography. Medical. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:"My brother saw the face of God. You never recover from a trauma like that."So begins Angelhead, a taut, powerful memoir of the madness and crime that rips a family apart.
"I didn't see God, of course, but I saw my brother seeing God; I saw how petrified he was, how convinced."
Set in Tidewater, Virginia, in the 1980s and early 1990s, Angelhead documents the violent, drug-addled, schizophrenic descent of the author's show more brother, Michael. Commencing with Michael's first psychotic break at age 14 — high on acid, seeing God in his suburban bedroom window — through a series of petty crimes, bizarre disappearances, and suicide attempts to the shocking crime that landed him in the psychiatric wing of a maximum security prison, Angelhead enables us to witness firsthand, as never before, the fragmenting of a mind and a family.
"I knew, still know, that he saw, in some form, His or Her or Its face."
Bottoms shows, in pitch-perfect prose and with great empathy and dramatic tension, the psychological decline of his brother as he becomes obsessed first with heavy metal music, martial arts, and the occult, and then with the more bizarre aspects of Christianity. We not only see the effects Michael's odd and increasingly violent behavior has on the people around him, but also come to understand how the author, now a successful writer and journalist, used the power of language and storytelling both to save himself and to forgive his brother. With the fast pace and seamless structure of the best crime writing and the moral sophistication and depth of our finest literature, Angelhead will challenge what we know about mental illness and its impact on us all. It is a brilliant work of unusual intensity.
"In his room he was having his first of many psychotic breaks. It came in the form of crippling guilt, ruthless introspection. He was Jesus being scolded by an angry Father. He wore sin, all sin, heavy as lead shackles. God made him look at himself and he was a stone with a minuscule heart.". show less
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Member Reviews
A harrowing tale of one family's suffering through their son's mental disorder (schizophrenia). Told from his brother's perspective, I found it fascinating, but sad. It was a quick read for me. I would recommend it if you are interested in how mental illness can disrupt an entire family, but there are no real answers here. Parts of it are disturbing.
This is the memoir of a man whose brother is an acute paranoid schizophrenic and whose family was unaware of his disease for two decades. Bottoms' account of his brother's life, from every perspective possible--mother, father, brother, self, neighbors, friends--is heart-wrenching. So many people suffer from this disease and yet most are never diagnosed or properly treated, and Bottoms effectively communicates the pain and struggle that this can inflict on every member of a family. This book is highly recommended for those who have experienced this disease through a loved one, or for those who are just compassionate and want to better understand the effects that schizophrenia has on its sufferers and on all of us as a community. show more
Recommended by Laura, October 2007
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Staff Picks show less
Recommended by Laura, October 2007
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Staff Picks show less
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Author Information
9 Works 233 Members
Greg Bottoms' writing has been published in "Salon," "Feed," "Nerve," & "The Beacon Best of 1999." He lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. (Bowker Author Biography)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2000-11-07
- First words
- My brother saw the face of God.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality
- DDC/MDS
- 616.89 — Applied science & technology Medicine & health Diseases, Allergies, Skin Conditions Nervous Disorders: Autism, Anorexia, OCD Mental disorders: bi-polar/schizophrenia
- LCC
- RC514 .B593 .B673 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Psychiatry Psychopathology Psychoses
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 132
- Popularity
- 247,385
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.72)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 1
