Angelhead: My Brother's Descent into Madness

Set in Tidewater, Virginia, in the 1980s and early 1990s, this volume documents the violent, drug-addled descent of the author's brother, Michael, into paranoid schizophrenia. From Micheal's first psychotic break aged 14 - out of his mind 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. This book enables the reader to witness first-hand the fragmenting of a mind and a family. The author's prose offers no consolation or easy answers - simply emotional precision and hard truth.