false 157204 3 0 269430 0226067645 9780226067643 18 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173296229m/269430.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173296229s/269430.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/269430.Angelhead_My_Brother_s_Descent_into_Madness 3.84 98 --Wendy Smith]]> 157204 3.81 180 45 2000 353662 1593761309 9781593761301 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174017759m/353662.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174017759s/353662.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/353662.Sentimental_Heartbroken_Rednecks_Stories_from_the_New_South 3.70 23
An ode to Pulitzer-nominee Breece D'J Pancake's life and untimely death, the title story deftly interweaves Bottoms's personal history to insightful result. In the transformative “The Metaphor,” the narrator proclaims, “when the world looks like every little promise has been lanced and bled out, you need a story to tell yourself.” So we move seamlessly between the lives of people both real and imagined and the life of the author, and what emerges is not only a composite of sharply drawn and revealing moments, but also a book-length meditation on the nature of, and necessity for, storytelling itself. Including three new stories — “Sam at the Gun Show,” “Strangers and Dreams,” and “Heroism #2” — this revised edition announces an understated, arresting new voice in literature.</div>]]> 157204 3.81 180 45 2001 457583 0226066851 9780226066851 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174933218m/457583.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174933218s/457583.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/457583.The_Colorful_Apocalypse_Journeys_in_Outsider_Art 3.68 25 The Colorful Apocalypse is a masterly chronicle—is an unparalleled look into the lives and visionary works of some of Finster’s contemporaries: the self-taught evangelical artists whose beliefs and oeuvres occupy the gray area between madness and Christian ecstasy.

With his prodigious gift for conversation and quietly observant storytelling, Bottoms draws us into the worlds of such figures as William Thomas Thompson, a handicapped ex-millionaire who painted a 300-foot version of the book of Revelation; Norbert Kox, an ex-member of the Outlaws biker gang who now lives as a recluse in rural Wisconsin and paints apocalyptic visual parables; and Myrtice West, who began painting to express the revelatory visions she had after her daughter was brutally murdered. These artists’ works are as wildly varied as their life stories, but without sensationalizing or patronizing them, Bottoms—one of today’s finest young writers—gets at the heart of what they have in common: the struggle to make sense, through art, of their difficult personal histories.

In doing so, he weaves a true narrative as powerful as the art of its subjects, a work that is at once an enthralling travelogue, a series of revealing biographical portraits, and a profound meditation on the chaos of despair and the ways in which creativity can help order our lives.
</div></div>]]> 157204 3.81 180 45 2007 4894780 1593761295 9781593761295 7 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4894780.Fight_Scenes 3.89 19 Fight Scenes takes an unsparing look at juvenile disaffection and the dark side of white, working-class masculinity. By narrating his experiences with childhood buddy Mark, Bottoms shows how many of America’s young men learn to think about work, sex, weakness, violence, and themselves.
In a pared-down, highly readable style that brings to mind the work of Raymond Carver, Sherman Alexie, and Denis Johnson, Bottoms has created a work of literature that shows how even the most accepted forms of “toughness” can have a damaging, disorienting, and finally dehumanizing effect on everyone, especially kids.
</DIV>]]> 157204 3.81 180 45 2008 6626921 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6626921-angelhead 0.0 0
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 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."]]> 157204 3.81 180 45 2002