Angelhead is a novel written in 2000 by Greg Bottoms that is set in Tidewater, Virginia during the 1980s. The book follows Bottoms experience dealing with his brother Michael’s descent into madness, a result of his later diagnoses of schizophrenia. The novel follows Greg and his family as they witness Michael’s psychotic breaks and struggle to cope with their reality. Furthermore the novel details the shockingly quick descent of a schizophrenic into, as Bottoms describes, a madman. Reading the novel eighteen years after its publication, and decades after the experiences described, gives some insight into how mental health was viewed at the time and what the outcome of brushing aside severe mental illness can do. The novel begins with a description