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Angelhead: A Memoir
by Greg Bottoms
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (2001-09-04)
ISBN: 0609807145
EAN: 9780609807149
Dewy Decimal #: 616.89820092
Paperback: 224 pages
Edition: 1 Pbk ed
Release Date: 2001-09-04
SKU: S070417-2665
Condition: Very Good
Comments: Very good overall condition. No writing, very tight binding. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In pitch-perfect prose, Greg Bottoms shows 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 see not only the effect 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.
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Amazon.com Review
When he was 10 years old, the author watched as his brother Michael lost his mind. High on LSD and screaming uncontrollably because God was torturing him, the 14-year-old smashed everything in his bedroom, his feet red with blood from broken glass. Michael collected snakes and let them slither around his naked body; he beat Greg nearly senseless, then smashed his own forehead into a sharp branch in repentance; he stayed up all night, watching Christian television or "puzzling over his strange and cruel distance from God." Their parents, preoccupied by the ceaseless work that had taken them from a dirt-poor Virginia town to an affluent suburb that they really couldn't afford, thought drugs the problem and throwing Michael out the answer. Not until 1977, when he was 21, did they learn that he was an acute paranoid schizophrenic, so severely mentally ill that he probably would never be healed, although medication might control his behavior. Michael became increasingly dangerous, but could not be institutionalized against his will; when he set their house on fire in 1993, the father's reaction was relief: "This was the best thing that could have happened.... He'll be put away." He was, and, Bottoms acknowledges, "We've all found a peace without Michael that we're not willing to give up." There's no false sentiment in this unflinching memoir of a family that's alienated, instead of united, by tragedy: "We all hid from each other," Bottoms writes with characteristic candor. "We shared a space, a roof, nothing else." There is, however, tremendous sorrow for a blighted life and the havoc that it wrought. Bottoms's finely crafted prose offers no consolation or easy answers--simply emotional precision and the satisfaction of hard truth. --Wendy Smith
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Customer Reviews
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A Work of Art
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-07-16
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is work of art for me. It's style has depth, and is lyrical and brutal and bold and beautiful. This is one of the best written books I have read in my life - incuding literature/classics etc - and one of my very favorites.
Angelhead opens up parts of the inner life that only one who has suffered can reveal. Greg does this powerfully. There is clarity to be found in madness. There is beauty in the deepest pain. There is love moving in its pages without sentimentality. Angelhead is a smart, sensitive portrayal of life both sane and insane (whatever that really means) and a book I will read again and again.
Greg, if you're reading this, I'd love to speak with you.
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Hoped for better: Disappointed
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-12-06
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I was very disappointed with this book. With 38 generally positive reviews I borrowed Angelhead from my local library. I read it straight through. Unfortunately while the writing is gripping at times it is boring and repetitive at others. In part the story relies too much on the sensational and extreme nature of this family's dreadful experience. There is no question however that the story is fully heartbreaking throughout. Overall the author lacks insight except in the gaps both in a medical and a personal sense.
While it is hard to overstate the grim prognosis and difficulty of schizophrenia, this case was clearly worsened by the parents' denial of the obvious disease including their denial of their own family history of mental illness. This is a typical trap and cautionary tale which the author fails to fully explore. On the other hand, even when the disease was diagnosed and acknowledged, their very typical difficulty in obtaining help for their son shows the inadequacy of the current mental health laws and the mental health system.
I have watched as one young acquaintance descended into schizophrenia and have followed his ongoing struggle with this crushing disease. I know both personally and in my capacity as a nurse, many others who are permanently disabled by schizophrenia. The side effects of schizophrenia medications are truly dreadful but need to be dealt with in order to deal with the disease. This important medical fact is never mentioned by the author. While this is very much a story that needs to be told and read about this book is truly inadequate to the task.
Two much better memoirs of the experience of schizophrenia which I have read recently are The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness and The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness
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Compassion?
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-10-22
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Recently having read "angelhead" in a day by Greg Bottoms I found a few disheartening things.
I had seen this book many times an anticipated reading it, I had hoped it would have been similar to the account of "tell me I'm here" by Anne Deveson.
Instead it was a story showing the tragedy that strikes where there is no compassion or help given in a time of desperation.
Bottom's facts are clearly not researched. Although a good read for the story value I would not support taking his facts as good statistics as they are poorly researched:
""schizophrenics as a populace have a much higher instance of committing both murder and suicide (just during the writing of this book i have tallied six national news stories about paranoid schizophrenics committing homicide or multiple homicide and those mind you are only the ones making national news like the unabomber) violence against family is most common." -Greg Bottoms
If Bottoms had researched his facts he would not have based them merely on News reports he personally had seen during his time of writing his personal account.
with Homicide rates are typically quoted as per 100000 people per year in the USA.Where as murders by mentally ill are 55-60 per year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/248841.stm
I feel Bottoms book should only be looked on as the perspective of one families experience with schizophrenia.
The family lacked compassion, Bottoms noted that they did nothing for a great deal of time assuming he was merely reacting to prolonged use of drugs (even that not being a motivating enough reason to get him help).Even once understood he had a mental illness the family did nothing to help the son even sending him to another state with a one way ticket and a bit of cash until he showed up starving several months later.
I feel the mother is the only one in the book who showed compassion towards her mentally ill son, who really tried. The youngest brother admitted he hated him and Bottoms stated he did deep down wish his brother with schizophrenia had died when he attempted suicide.
I give the book a good rating for story value, I feel a vast majority of his statistics are poorly researched but if You would like an account of how one family dealt then this is one of many stories to take into account.
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Dark and Disturbing
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-09-15
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.
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Angelhead
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-07-24
Angelhead was a book that I would read over again.. It came from the heart. I wish I could express myself as well as Greg has done in this book about his brother. The story is powerful and well written. He has shared how mental illness affects the whole family.
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