American Alt: A True Story of Madness and Friendship in a Fractured Country

by Chris Lockhart

A glimpse into the mind of an American conspiracy theorist and the schizophrenia, trauma, and disinformation that drove him to the brink

On the eve of January 6, 2021, Michael Dodd and his three friends sat in a stolen vehicle on the grounds of the Washington State capitol armed to the teeth and ready to kidnap Governor Jay Inslee. Only there weren't actually three others in the car; Dodd was alone.

Months later, the violent plan thwarted, Dodd was a patient in a psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. His memory of that fateful day was spotty, fractured by the different personality states he now knew were affecting his reality. Skeptical of a state mental-health system but eager to figure out how his world had turned upside down, he reached out to his longtime friend, the author Chris Lockhart, for help.

American Alt is the odyssey of two friends trying to piece together the fragments of Dodd's shattered memory and uncover the truth of what pushed him to the edge. Set against the beautiful but economically broken region where both men rambled in their youth, Lockhart delivers a suspenseful, profoundly moving story of discovery and affirmation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Mental Health, Biography, Biography Memoir, Psychology, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2026

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schizophrenia seems like a massive challenge by itself, but if you add dissociative identity disorder to it then you get, well, Michael Dodd! Dodd is one of two main characters in the excellent American Alt by Chris Lockhart. Lockhart, the author, is the other main character who doesn't have either of those mental disorders, but he's got some challenges he is facing, too.

I wasn't totally sure what this book would include. The subtitle suggests that the state of the country may be a big talking point. This led me to worry that I was going to get a politically motivated sociology lecture and I cannot begin to tell you how little I would have cared. Luckily, anytime there is politics that come up, it is always from a character whose political views are immaterial to the story. This is mainly because the people who spout off about the government are Dodd's alternate personalities. The book is also not true crime. While Dodd starts off the book under government supervision, this is not a case of whodunit. Well, it kind of is in that we wonder which alter did what, but the crime is not the story.

What this book is about is the friendship of Lockhart and Dodd. Lockhart returns to his home state of Washington after a major loss. He is a self-proclaimed nomad who would probably just disappear from town once again until his old friend Dodd calls from a psychiatric center. At its heart, the narrative is a buddy road trip to try and unravel the brain of Dodd and understand what his alters are trying to do. It's a love letter to the state of Washington, friendship, and dealing with your trauma.

My enjoyment of the writing evolved over the course of the book. Lockhart is a descriptive writer and his prose can border on flowery at times. It's not overwhelming, but at first it was noticeable. As the book goes on, it becomes less and less, almost mirroring Lockhart's slow dropping of his defenses in the story. It also helps to contrast with whenever Dodd's alters take over the narrative to tell stories to Lockhart. There are books where authors are just trying to show off how smart and artsy they are. Here, I felt Lockhart was doing something with his choices and it works. Highly recommend picking this one up, especially if you want something very unique in the memoir/nonfiction genre.

(This book was provided as a review copy by Bloomsbury Publishing.)

[K.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is not the hook described on the dust jacket. Very little of it is actually about almost participating in an insurrection in Olympia. It is Lockhart’s story of telling Michael’s (and the others) story and discovering parts of his own identity through it. It’s about trauma, nature, conspiracy theories, economically deserted people and towns, the abysmal state of mental health care in America, the naive idealism of international aid work, and friendship. Not the book I thought I’d be reading but it was so well-written and engrossing I gobbled it up in a couple days.

[Emma Claire Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this read—

Landscape & wilderness driven, touches on mental health, politics & the importance of compassion

[Harley Quinn · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

4.5★: A MOVING MEMOIR UNDONE BY NARRATION & QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY. This is a fascinating memoir/biography hybrid in which the author tells the story of his longtime friend Michael, a man living with dissociative identity disorder (DID), while also reflecting on their shared experiences in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). It’s an engaging, compassionate portrait that never reduces Michael to his diagnosis. Instead, it presents him as a complex, resilient person whose life is full of adventure, hardship, humor, and humanity... just trying to navigate both a fractured mental health system and conspiracy-filled political landscape.

The PNW setting feels like a character in its own right, and the friendship at the heart of the book gives the story warmth and credibility. I finished with a genuine appreciation for both men.

The book is also unexpectedly funny. The humor feels authentic to lifelong guy friends. Lines like, “you’re just one more fart in an industry of farts” and describing someone who “stands out like a random booger eater” made me smile because they’re so oddly specific and completely unpretentious. It also reminded me of a former coworker who, while trying to adlib an example in a discussion on workplace culture, said “a culture of burps and farts.” Shaun, IT DOES EXIST! 😆

Unfortunately, the Bloomsbury-published audiobook introduced enough questions that it affected my overall experience.

As a lifelong resident of the PNW, I noticed repeated pronunciation errors involving local place names. A few mistakes are understandable, but there were enough that they became distracting and suggested the production lacked local fact-checking.

More importantly, because this is presented as a true story, I was left questioning its authenticity. One chapter identifies a one-armed Makah tribal member from tiny Neah Bay by name. Given how identifiable that description is in such a small community, I couldn’t tell whether the individual was being named directly or whether a pseudonym had been used. If names or identifying details were changed to protect privacy—which would be entirely appropriate—I think that should have been disclosed, especially in the audiobook. Without that transparency, I found myself wondering where the line was between documented fact and protected identity, and that uncertainty cast an unfortunate shadow over an otherwise compelling story.

The underlying story is excellent, and I still recommend it. I just wish the audiobook had received stronger quality control and clearer disclosure where privacy considerations may have required changes, because both issues pulled me out of what was otherwise a memorable and moving listen.

Published two days ago on 7/7/26, I was the 8th Goodreads reviewer who brought its average rating to 4.63★.

[Zoe Zeid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminded me of The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen, whose friend was also coincidentally named Michael. What the mind can do is so crazy and scary. I learned a lot about schizophrenia and mental health care in the US, which is really not good.

[Trinh Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important & well-written book on the mental health crisis, small town America, and empathy.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, conspiracy, lifelong friendship, abuse, gonzo journalism

I think I would have enjoyed this story more if I had a better understanding of the story from the outset. From what I had seen blurbed, this was the story of a man who had schizophrenia and attacked a capitol building in Washington State on Jan. 6, believing he was with a group of other men. However, that is an extremely minimal part of the story. It's more the story of a friendship between two men who have been lifelong friends. Lockhart returns home to Washington and gets back in touch with his friend Michael, who has recently been released from a mental institute, and the two set out on a series of road trips in an effort for Michael to connect with this multiple personalities and uncover stories of various traumas in his life. It's fascinating, and full of very Kerouacian/Keseyan style writing and a solid amount of rambling around in the American west. I feel like the marketing of this book was all wrong and it might struggle to find the right readers because of that, but it is a fascinating story of very up close mental health issues.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up

I'm having trouble figuring out what I want to say. I think to start with, it's good to know that while Michael did fall into a conspiracy mindset, thus leading to his being committed into a hospital, that's really not what the book is about. And while the book certainly profiles a person with DID and schizophrenia (and does so well), it really doesn't feel overly about that either, which is wild, because the reason the book exists is that Chris started working with him to write his life story as a form of therapy.

Nonetheless, what really shines through for me are the themes of home, friendship, and nature - all of which are beautifully intertwined with each other. There are some truly gorgeous sentiments scattered throughout the book that touch on that combination.

I suppose I also just find the idea of someone reconnecting with an old friend and helping them in this way and learning things they didn't know about themselves in the process really beautiful. It truly does feel like Michael and Chris's story.

[Misty Moseley-Helber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about friendship mostly. It exposes our very broken mental health system and how that rotates people on a loop through the criminal justice system. I found it interesting and appreciated the style in which the book is structured for purposes of storytelling. It reinforces how a pandemic fed into the isolation and frustration of people which exploded a vulnerable population’s susceptibility to disinformation and conspiratorial thinking.

[vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. This was really not the type of book I thought it’d be from the cover. It was a compassionate look at a longtime friendship as one of the friends (Michael) is going through diagnosis and treatment for mental illness, including schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. It’s not really about Jan. 6 as per the blurb. We get to know Michael’s alters via stories they narrate to the author as part of his therapy. These stories tell the life events that lead up to his involuntary hold. There is a big emphasis on nature, fishing, and camping in rural parts of Washington state. There is talk of impending doom due to loss of industry, damage to the land through climate change, and Michael’s difficult time serving for three tours of military service. It was much more insular than I expected and unlike many other books I thought this would be like (The Quiet Damage, Trust the Plan). It is beautiful to read about the outdoors, but maybe lacked the larger conspiratorial thinking story. Sometimes it was quite difficult to be with Michael’s alters and trauma, but it is also a condition I don’t know much about so it’s also insightful to understand someone with DID more fully.

[Alex Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating multi-perspective story of a man with DID and schizophrenia, including perspectives from different parts of the system. So well written and a beautiful exploration of these two diagnoses intertwining.

[Luke · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I was very moved by the devotion Chris Lockhart showed to Michael and by his eloquent summary of the events & environments that led to Michael’s psychosis. Everyone could use a friend like Chris

[Greg · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

This is an unusual and difficult-to-categorize work of nonfiction. Neither a conventional memoir nor a straightforward work of true crime, it combines investigative journalism, psychological inquiry, and an account of an unlikely friendship. Along the way, it touches on the decline of rural America, the natural wonders of the American West, the appeal of right-wing conspiracy theories, and the psychological wounds that can persist long after childhood trauma or military service.

The book chronicles Lockhart’s efforts to help his childhood friend, Michael Dodd, reconstruct a fragmented personal history. Dodd lives with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (DID), a condition once commonly described as multiple personality disorder. Rather than recounting his own experiences in a conventional first-person narrative, Lockhart adopts the methods of an investigative journalist, following leads, asking questions, and piecing together a troubling history. Yet his approach is ultimately less that of a detached reporter than of a compassionate friend trying to understand someone whose behavior has long been difficult to explain.

A central feature of Lockhart’s investigation is his willingness to engage with Dodd’s alternate personalities, or “alts,” as distinct individuals. By interviewing them and treating their accounts as potential sources of evidence, he gradually uncovers a history of horrific childhood trauma that helps explain Dodd’s fractured identity and dissociative coping mechanisms. Lockhart is not a clinician, and the book is not a clinical case study. Its interest lies instead in the painstaking, deeply personal process of trying to understand another human being whose inner life has been shaped by experiences that are difficult to comprehend.

The book’s scope extends well beyond that investigation. Lockhart’s travels with Dodd through the backcountry of the Pacific Northwest provide some of its most evocative passages, capturing a beautiful natural landscape as well as communities in economic decline. The social environment matters: unemployment, alienation, and political resentment form part of the background against which Michael’s conspiracy thinking takes hold. The book also explores the psychological consequences of war, suggesting that the damage inflicted by military experience need not be visible to be profound. These strands are not always easily reconciled, but together they offer a portrait of people struggling to make sense of their lives in a world that has often failed them.

If “American Alt” has weaknesses, they may stem from Lockhart’s unwavering commitment to treating Dodd’s alternate personalities as separate people and a vague attempt to compare Lockhart’s nomadic career to Michael’s mental illness. This interview approach gives the investigation much of its distinctive character, but it can also blur the distinction between the narrative’s many apparent participants and its two central figures. The reader may occasionally lose sight of the fact that, whatever the subjective reality of Dodd’s experience, the story ultimately revolves around Michael and Chris. Likewise, Lockhart’s attempt to explain his own behavior in the light of what he found about Michael seem underdeveloped and ill considered.

Those reservation aside, “American Alt” is an engaging and thoughtful work of investigative journalism that resists easy categorization. Its most compelling achievement is not simply the reconstruction of a troubled man’s past, but the demonstration of how patience, curiosity, and friendship can help illuminate experiences that might otherwise remain inaccessible. By bringing together mental illness, childhood and wartime trauma, economic hardship, and the origins of conspiracy thinking, Lockhart offers a disturbing yet humane exploration of the forces that shape damaged lives.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I had skimmed the back cover too quickly at Barnes and Noble, but I was not expecting a DID story. Not sure that I really wanted one either. That’s on me. The title also makes more sense now. However, the first half of the book only deals with one alter. Ultimately, I found much of the book boring. Much of it is them not really working and just lounging around in different rural areas. I understand some of this is a cultural difference, but I was just not interested by the tenth description of driving down some unpaved road to a river. I do think the last third starts to pick up, but the ultimate conclusion trying to tie their two stories together did not work for me at all.

This line was funny: "I briefly pondered whether an uncommonly white ass was one of the lesser-known consequences of being locked away in a mental institution."

[Jennifer Delarosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looks like I am on outlier on this, but I really struggled with this book. Though the subject matter was very interesting to me, as told, this was confusing and, unfortunately, boring. There were a few times when I thought it was on the verge of picking up, but alas, they were short-lived.

Perhaps this would have been less confusing if I had read it instead of listening to it, and I found the narration to be flat and the narrators' many mispronunciations to be very distracting. But mostly, this was just boring and I finished it only because I really hate investing a lot of time and then giving up on a book.

[Brett Heyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description of the book is a bit misleading, as the events on January 6th are pretty irrelevant to 95% of the book. It is equally an exploration of DID as it is a travelogue as it is the exploration of a very specific part of the country, the latter of the three being my favorite. I did not find the subject to be a very sympathetic character, illness or not, primarily because of how dark and ignorant much of his worldview seemed to be regardless of his condition. I thought the author did a good job of suspending any judgment, but perhaps some judgment was warranted?

[Kim Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

". . . we lay on top of a ridge and observed the elk well into the afternoon as they prepared for another winter . . . After a while, every movement, both elk and human, seemed monumental. At some point Michael turned to me and said, "Imagine if we did this every day for an entire winter. We'd be completely different people. We'd become like shamans.""

This is a story about friendship, nature, trauma, and mental health. Lockhart helps his childhood buddy Michael document his story to help him make sense of his life that has been affected by schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. It covers economic and environmental issues in western OR & WA as they affect the residents who live there, war, conspiracy theories, sexual abuse and more. Well written and enthralling book.

[Emmanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating and unsettling look at friendship, trauma, and how someone’s sense of reality can become so fractured. I liked that the story focuses not just on what happened, but on the process of trying to piece together the truth afterward. The friendship at the center gave the book a surprisingly human and emotional side.

[Jenny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a book that chronicles and rebuilds Michael's memories of his trauma and the resulting alters who seek to help him deal with his trauma. It seems to make the argument that mental illness is a maladaptive coping mechanism for trauma and that essentially, the holistic model is such that human beings will always have mental illness because there will always be traumatic events in our lives.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of 24 books I have read so far this year this was far and away my favorite. It’s layered and the way the author writes and tells the story that weaves the elements of friendship, trauma, life in the current landscape of the world and navigating it through the PNW was touching and riveting. An important book anytime and maybe even more so with all that we are facing.

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intertwining stories of a friendship, a place, two men, and rural America form a book that will have great appeal to those who love long form nonfiction narratives Both Michael and Chris are compelling as characters and share both grief and joy with the reader.

[Lottie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐️

As someone with schizophrenia and OSDD (another dissociative disorder similar to DID) this book hit incredibly close to home. I came away being grateful to be mentally ill in Australia and not the US

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting (and looking for) more sociopolitical commentary when I picked this up. When I got over that initial mismatch of expectations, this was a poignant and interesting memoir of male friendship.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I should try this again, because this did NOT work for me but I love seeing what people loved about it! The chapters flipping back and forth in perspective left me cold, and I felt we didn't get enough thoughtfulness that bridged the gaps. I dunno. I would read an essay of this.

[Joseph Spencer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lockhart's prose is so flowery I had to set the book down because it sounded like a child just adding in words to make his essay longer. The description relating to January 6th seems deliberately deceptive to make you think the book is political when it is not. Did not finish after three chapters.

[Jessica McNeil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It has a great representation of what some people endure when experiencing mental illnesses. A little slow but definitely worth the read!

Goodreads giveaway ARC copy.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mental illness in the southwest area of Washington. Very different sort of book and not for me.

[Andres · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Alt offers an eye-opening and intense look at the person behind the diagnosis and the trauma that shaped his life, reminding us that compassion can be just as important as understanding.

[JulieK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Empathetic portrait of the author’s friend and his experience with dissociative mental illness. Northwest landscapes play a big part in the atmosphere and storytelling.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

But it's all relative: one person's foie gras-eating snob is another person's banjo-playing f*cktard.