#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease. “Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness.” —Oprah WinfreyDon and Mimi Galvin seemed to be … —Oprah Winfrey
Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don’s work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins–aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony–and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?
What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.
With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family’s unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.
more
This was a tough but fascinating read about the Galvin family. Of their 12 children, six were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Bob Kolker’s compassionate storytelling and scientific accuracy make this a must read.
The family system is complex and nobody is a hero and nobody is without redeeming qualities. Better understanding the spectrum of schizophrenia was my hope for this book, and it did not fail. Lots of science, but not hard to follow. It is an account of a group of 14 in a family in utter chaos. It is about researchers and their continual quest to understand medical mysteries and to help people they will never meet. It reflects a Herculean effort by the author to gather resources and fully utilize the history of a family and a medical field to write a comprehensive book on a phenomenally important subject.
Heartbreaking but so interesting. Made me very thankful for my own healthy family and more aware of other people’s struggles.
Interesting story but author needed to edit more.
It is a special narrative of one family’s descent into mental illness, how they dealt with it, and the eventual insights that they provided to researchers in this field.
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker is a very highly recommended true family drama and medical detective story following the Galvin family.
Between 1945 and 1965 Don and Mimi Galvin had 12 children, 10 sons first and then 2 daughters. Later 6 of the boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is the inside true story of their family, including the violent wrestling matches between the older brothers, the seemingly perfect father, the control Mimi exercised over them, the hidden sexual abuse, and the feelings of abandonment by younger siblings. Once their first born, Donald, began exhibiting mental issues and was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, they tried to keep the truth hidden as long as possible. By the 1970’s six of their sons who were diagnosed as schizophrenic and the families secret could no longer be hidden. Soon Mimi was spending all her time and energy trying to help the “sick” boys while basically leaving the “healthy” children to their own devices.
It is also the story of the history of schizophrenia and the medical advancements made during this time. Kolker follows the background information about the history of schizophrenia and the psychiatric, chemical, and biological advancements in treatment were interesting. The various treatments the brothers endured are shared and the struggles they had taking their medication as the professionals searched to find a treatment that worked for the brothers. Because so many siblings in one family were diagnosed with schizophrenia, the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health is the search for a genetic marker for the disease. Samples of their DNA are still being used in genetic research today. This research continues to influence treatment, prediction of the disease occurring and hopefully a way to prevent the disease in the future.
This is in turn a heart breaking and fascinating well-written and researched account. It is truly an honest portrait of a family in crisis. Kolker follows each family member, their place in the family, and their story with empathy and honesty. It is easy to judge Mimi’s actions, but at the same time impossible to do so unless you were in her situation. She really seemed to handle the mental breakdowns of her sons as most people from her generation would and her own background also influenced this. The recounting of the family’s history and suffering is handled with compassion. This is not always an easy read, but it is an eye opening and engrossing narrative.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/12/hidden-valley-road.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4377138851
It made me more aware of the stigma of mental illness and the misinformation about schizophrenia that is rampant. Fascinating and well written.
This book was well written, organizing a lot of information and people, yet readable. It broke down the fact portion and made it interesting.
I’m a science person but the info was handled in a fun way broken Into manageable parts. I couldn’t put it down.
This book helped me to better understand mental illness. Some aspects are still frighteningly overwhelming, yet there is hope offered in progresses that have occurred within the medical community and the knowledge as to the importance of a calming influence and compassion for the afflicted. This includes the family of the patients, who sometimes require even more understanding and compassion.
God bless the doctors who have devoted time and energy in an effort to correct so many misdiagnoses and medications that did more harm than good for so many years. They are all heroes in my book!
Intriguing and sad. There is so much left to learn about mental illness, and this book gives a clear understanding of what it is like to grow up in a family where answers are limited.
Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker is the mind-blowing story of a family where six of the twelve children are schizophrenic. I listened to this book and was drawn straight in and seriously had a difficult time stopping to go to bed, so much so that I woke up early and finished it on just the second day, a total listening time of 13 hours and 8 minutes. There is a lot of technical doctor-ish talk, but it is done in such a way that is completely understandable and not boring in the slightest. I found it interesting to learn quite a bit about schizophrenia, I really had no idea of what it is. This book highlights not only the incredible difficulties of living with family members with mental illness, but also, in my opinion, the challenges of having so many children. My heart broke especially for the two youngest, the only two girls born in the Galvin family. I highly recommend this book, it was a book club selection and was given good reviews by pretty much all of us.
Sometimes repetitive about the status us treatment for schizophrenia,but little has changed for 60 years, so . . . Following one family so hard hit and integral to discoveries that have been made was what made the book readable. It was well done, if disheartening. The politics of research is always saddening, too.
It is a very interesting book. Not only does it write about a family that has six sons with schizophrenia, but it also tells about how research has been trying to cure this disease.
This is the most depressing book I have ever read. If you want to know there is no help for this terrible disease then read this book.
Hidden Valley Road was an intimate, sometimes painful, sometimes edge of the seat, nerve-wracking account of one family’s experience with the mental illness of schizophrenia.
Kolker’s methodology for structuring the book was great – from writing about the family’s personal experiences – to exploring the research going on at this time into schizophrenia. He began with Mimi and Don Galvin’s relationship, their marriage, and their interests. They were a unique family even if the mental illness had never developed.
With research chapters, it was clear there were disagreements in the scientific/research communities about what causes it. Some said the answer was in the DNA or genome sequencing among various other possibilities, like lack of certain supplements. (choline) Others said it was having controlling, and emotionally lacking mothers. (nature/nurture argument).
A lot of hope was put into the Galvin family with regard to this research. They had twelve children, (ten boys, and two girls) with six of the boys having developed schizophrenia.
Every bit of it was interesting, while at times the chapters about what researchers were doing were heavy with terminology like CHRNA7, inhibitory neurons, and diathesis stress hypothesis, yet I still found it a compelling read, particularly when the focus was on the family dynamic and how the kids who were “normal” were impacted by those who had the illness.
One thing in particular really stood out to me.
Lindsay, the youngest Galvin, (real name Mary) had a therapist, a Dr. Silvern she was seeing for many reasons as you can imagine, but one of them, and maybe the main reason, was because of the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of the second oldest sibling brother, Jim.
“Silvern called resilience ‘that wonderful term for something we don’t understand.’ Resilience is the subject of umpteen academic studies, of course, and if someone could figure it out, they would rush to bottle the solution. In Silvern’s experience, it was sometimes a matter of luck that a person has the right temperament to absorb trauma in a way that still allows them to be open to new experiences, to go through life with armor.”
I was struck by this statement because of my research of sexual abuse for my debut, THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE, and in my Author’s Note, I mentioned resilience. Dr. Silvern’s comments further solidify the research for what I had found out. A few readers left scathing reviews about my ignorance over such matters. What they said was harsher, but I’ll leave it at that.
Back to this book, what is sad is there hasn’t been much forward progress in the treatment of schizophrenia. Many of the same treatments are in place decades later.
A highly recommended read for those who enjoy narrative non-fiction.
It was an interesting read with a lot of information that made you think about what life is like for some people with mental issues.
Incredibly haunting and a difficult, heartbreaking read. Great insight into complicated family dynamics and mental illness.
his book was just a wow for me. Throughout the whole book I thought about how this mental illness took over the whole family even though only 6 of the 12 children had it. It could very well have been that only 5 of them had it and the 6th had something different. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that the medical world still doesn’t have enough information about. I read this and wondered so many things. As a mother of a child that has schizophrenia I worried that it was my fault or that it was medical or it very could have been brought on by trauma. The sons in this family that have schizophrenia had some many different ways that they could have gotten it. I mean none of the sisters got it, but they could have. What really causes a person to break and then schizophrenia takes over? These questions are still out there. Is the medication to help control schizophrenia worth the price it puts on someone’s body? That question is still out there also. I really think this book shows we need more research about schizophrenia and less turning to drugs that haven’t changed that greatly since the 1950’s. This is a great read though.
It’s been awhile since I read this, but it left an impression on me. I never knew much about schizophrenia, but this author did a great job of educating and telling the story. The advancements and progress we’ve made in mental health over the years is astounding.
A true story of a dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional because a terrible mental disease affects several of the children in this family. A horribly dystopian reality