With this book, there is two aspects, one being a family of twelve children, where half develop mental illness, schizophrenia. The other aspect of the book is the history of how the medical field has approached this illness, with treatments and research in combating the illness.

The weaving of these two facets together into the story was well done, a good strategy. Overall the book is linear, but not entirely. We’d go through some years, then backtrack, then go forward, and backtrack again. For example, several times a drug for treatment was named, Thorazine, then in a later chapter we find out how this drug was developed. This overall jumping around of the timeline, particularly in the first parts of the book made it somewhat confusing at times. If it could have remained strictly linear I believe the book would have flowed better.

The book is highly readable; the language doesn’t dip into medical jargon or language that is incomprehensible. It is hard not to feel empathy for this family, with not only dealing with way too many children, but to have so many become mentally ill. And the experiences the younger children went through became that much more traumatic as less parental time would be devoted to them. There were so many different problems, issues, traumas for the younger children growing up, that in itself may cause mental illness.

Perhaps one of the most promising outcomes, particularly in research is in how treatment has improved in recent years. There is a focus on prevention and early intervention in ways that was not possible when this family was growing. The best cure is one that stops the illness before it starts.

A fascinating story about the mental illness that occurred in a family of 12 children half of whom were affected by schizophrenia. Chapters are devoted to individual children and their stories as well as stories about the family dynamics.

Thank you Netgalley for the free Arc.

I can't imagine going through life with a family member that is schizophrenic, the upset and constant worry, the unpredictability. I can't even imagine what it would be like in a family with six schizophrenic brothers in the 1950's when the treatments ranged from electroshock therapy to insulin coma to thorazine. Yet it happened to the Galvin family in Colorado. I read this book in record time because it provided such interesting insight into the spectrum of schizophrenia and because of the medical research that was spawned because of this family.

Highly recommend!

Excellent read on schizophrenia and the development of the location of the gene for it. Fascinating read and highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for the free review copy.

From the first time I discovered this book and reading the synopsis, I know I have to read it. Lately I’m being interested with a book related with mental illness, Hidden Valley Road is one of them and it really brings me to a great journey about schizophrenia who happens to a family with twelve children and six of them develop this illness on them.

Very heartbreaking reading how twelve siblings had to struggle with this situation, and six of them had to go back and forth stayed in a mental facility with a lot of variety of medication that being injected through their body, not to mention a shock therapy too. On the other hand, many scientists and researchers also eager and put their priority how to find a cure for this disease. The research had started since the 1900’s, and the question is clear; is it nature or nurture, can it be cured, can it pass to the next generation easily?.

The Galvin family story is emotionally heartbreaking, one by one they became ill, and those who aren’t sick also had a difficult time to accept the sick ones, they cannot accept them as a human being and as a part of family member. It broke my heart and their story will stay with me for a while.

Highly recommend for those who interested mental health issues subject. It’s incredibly well written, a well-researched nonfiction book

Well-researched non-fiction account of both the Galvin family's experiences with schizophrenia and also the recent history of psychiatric research into the disease. Mimi and Don Galvin raise 12 children-6 of who are schizophrenic. It was startling and heartbreaking to see how they managed dealing with this and it's effects on the entire family. It's also startling to think of the amount of research that this disease has had since the 1900's and how much there still is to find out. What causes it? Can it be cured? Is it nature or nurture? Is there a physical expression of the disease in the brain? Does medicating actually help? This book will stay with me for a while.
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Oh my gosh you guys this book! So if you have any interest at all in the science of the mind, and specifically mental illness and Schizophrenia I cannot recommend this enough. Robert Kolker who wrote the New York Times bestseller, ‘Lost Girls’ (which I’m absolutely reading ASAP after finishing this) has pieced together an exhaustive amount of research and interviews to bring to life the story of the Galvin family.

On paper they seemed like the perfect American family defying the odds. A successful Colorado father and husband, Don Galvin, his pretty refined wife Mimi, home maker extraordinaire and lover of the arts, and their twelve-yes twelve-children.
Attractive, bright, and charming, they were sports stars and musicians their passions varied, but were uniformly attractive, looking like they were cobbled together from a network tv show .Yet half of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia shattering the illusion of perfection and becoming a domestic nightmare and a parents hell.

It’s heartbreaking at times yet there’s something hopeful about the resilience of this family, especially for Mimi who strives to retain a sense of normalcy in the midst of utter chaos. Interspersed with the family story Kolker follows the science and scientists who test, investigate, disagree and debate over whether the nature vs nurture of the disease, and the ongoing search to find a cure or a preventative to help future patients manage their affliction. This is a terrific book, certain to be on many year end book lists, and will absolutely be on mine.

An intense and extraordinary account of a large damaged family that intertwines with relevant scientific information regarding schizophrenia. I would never have believed there could be so much illness and dysfunction in one family. I was so angry with the parents, Don and Mimi Galvin. Their behaviors and lack of parental supervision were selfish and would have snowballing and heartbreaking consequences, failing every one of their children.

*What a story! Thanks so much for the galley. Will post my review online upon publication and insert link below..

This is a heartbreaking look at the Galvin family. 12 children - 6 of which were diagnosed with Schizophrenia. This is a look at the treatment and mistreatment of mental illness over time.

More than anything, this is a look at medical history and how it has changed over time.

This is not a light-hearted read. It's painful and disturbing but is much needed in times where we take modern medicine for granted.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I feel like I've been reading a lot of memoirs lately! While I don't particularly read a lot of Non-Fiction, I do enjoy memoirs. This book tells a story of a subject that is shrouded in secrecy and darkness - and must be brought to light. This story is told with candor and heart. Mental illness is at the center of these pages; more specifically schizophrenia. The history of schizophrenia is discussed along with early treatments and the maltreatment of mentally ill. It was horrific to read about lobotomies and decrepit institutions where the mentally ill would be cast aside.

As a psychology student, I'm very interested in this subject. it was a stimulating and thought-provoking read. I'm definitely happy that I came upon this title on Netgalley. It will be easy to handsell, in my opinion to someone who is seeking more information on mental illness or is merely interested in the area of abnormal psychology.

Read if you: Are obsessed with books about medical history.

A family of 12 children, with six sons diagnosed with schizophrenia, seems incomphrensible. But this slowly developing horror did indeed happen to the Galvin family. The six children who did not develop schizophrenia were deeply affected as well, especially the two sisters. (There is description of sexual abuse.) Woven into this unbelievable story is the history of mental illness treatment, which is awful and fascinating. Although it is a lengthy book, you won't be able to put it down.

Librarians and booksellers: Buy for readers who want a medical history with a touch of mystery.

Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Happy anniversary, Doubleday. This is my thirtieth review for you.

Big thanks go to Net Galley and Doubleday for the review copy.

I wanted to read Kolker’s book because so little is written about schizophrenia for the general readership. My best friend’s older brother was schizophrenic, and sometimes she would phone me crying and whispering from the floor of her bedroom closet. The bro—let’s call him Marco--was a large person, over six feet tall with a towering red afro that made him appear even larger. He and my friend were both adopted, and their parents weren’t nearly that big. Marco hated taking his medication, and once he reached his teens, he self-medicated with every street drug he could get his hands on. As a result, he often became violent, breaking out all of the windows of the family home and assaulting his poor sweet mother with a crowbar before the cops arrived to haul him off to the hospital again.

And so I wondered, when I saw this book, whether this was a common experience (yes,) and what inroads had been made in the decades between then and now (very few.)

The Galvin family is an anomaly, a very large family of twelve children, half of whom were stricken and the other half traumatized from growing up with them. The family participated in The Human Genome Project, a compilation of genetic samples and other information aimed at unlocking Mother Nature’s terrible secrets. Of course, researchers were also absorbed in the question of nature versus nurture.

Kolker does an outstanding job of chronicling the Galvin family’s history alternately with passages about what was known about this disease at the time when the eldest sibling began to show symptoms, and what has been learned since. It’s a lot of information to organize and share, and who knows what information he weeded out as unnecessary, because one has to stop somewhere.

When the Galvin children were diagnosed in the mid-twentieth century, professionals in the field leaned heavily toward the idea that there was no hereditary cause for the condition, but instead embraced a “mother-as-monster” theory. Because of this, Mimi Galvin, the mother of all of those children, was inclined to stonewall rather than seek help. But who could blame her? Our society was only slightly removed from the days when the ‘crazy’ family member was locked in the attic. (“That thumping sound? Oh dear heaven, perhaps that old raccoon has snuck back in. Enjoy your pie; we’ll chase him out of there after you’re on your way.”) To make matters more complicated, Don, father of the brood, had a high profile position in the U.S. military, and rumors of family drama could have impacted his career.

Like my friend’s family, the Galvins dealt with the noise, the horror, the disruption by moving to the far edges of town, seeking geographical isolation so that neighborly complaints need not be an added worry.

Here’s the difficult part of writing about schizophrenia: readers want to find a grand discovery at the end; if not a cure, then a new and impressive treatment, or an historic advance in eliminating the problem. But solutions are elusive, and because of the stubborn nature of this disease, what may seem ground breaking to a researcher looks like a big, fat so-what to the average reader.

All told, Kolker has done a fine job describing what has taken place within the family and within the field; I thought he was a little hard on Mimi, who made a lot of errors but was facing a terrible dilemma during a period when our culture was very different from today. That aside, I do recommend this book to you. It will be available April 7, 2020.

I mainly wanted to read this book because my mom was bipolar. She was diagnosed when I was 14 and she was 40. This book is about a family with several siblings who were diagnosed as schizophrenic. All the members of the family (14 in all if you include the parents) either had or have serious mental issues or grew up surrounded by people who did. And the one positive thing is that the family became involved in a few different research studies on whether schizophrenia is inherited, how it develops, and how it can be treated.

Although this book was difficult for me to read at times, and it took me a little while to finish, I found it fascinating and extremely informative. And also somewhat cathartic for me as my mother passed away recently. I related to so many of the issues that the healthier siblings had to deal with and also the complicated family dynamics. In a lot of ways my mother was fortunate in that her condition was for the most part under control when she stayed on her meds (which luckily she did most of the time).

I recommend this book, especially if you are interested in mental health issues. It’s extremely well written. Thank you to Net Galley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free ebook in exchange for a review!

You don’t read too many books that are about mental health, let alone dive deep into the subject.

It was interesting to read about a family with 12 children, half of whom are affected by schizophrenia. It was interesting and heartbreaking to read how this illness took over each of these boys and how some of them even died as a result of the treatment.

It’s incredibly sad to read how mental illnesses were treated in history and how the common “treatment” was to medicate medicate medicate. These boys died due to their bodies not being able to take the effects of the medication they had been on for years.

Mary’s mother is well practiced at laughing off moments like these, behaving as if nothing is strange. To do anything else would be the same as admitting that she lacks any real control over the situation- that she cannot understand what is happening in her house, much less how to stop it.

Hidden Valley Road is the story of a family, created by Don and Mimi Galvin (ten boys and two girls) picked apart by the ravages of schizophrenia, a disease that takes the foundation of the family and ‘permanently tilted it in the direction of the sick family member’. What happens when it appears in several family members? When, like the fear of it’s contagion, the parents aim a laser focus on each child afraid they may be next? How does this attention harm every sibling? How can the parents possibly dodge the terror of, ‘who will be next’ ? Is it any surprise that fear of odd behavior in their own children will follow the siblings later in life?

In the beginning, Mimi and Don envisioned a life full of ‘limitless hope and confidence’. Don was ambitious, and war bound after joining the Marine Corp Reserves, before heading out near Okinawa where he was to be stationed during the war in 1945, he married Mimi. While he was away, Mimi gave birth to their firstborn son. Soon followed more children, born while her husband came and went for his career, at times he was home from Georgetown (finishing his degree) and Rhode Island to the Navy’s General Line School. Focused always on his career, which came first, Mimi was left either trailing after him with the children or awaiting his return alone with their offspring. She with dreams of a lawyer husband and a life where she could raise their brood alongside their family in New York, bided time until the war was over. Don was using the military as a means to his end, a career in law or better yet, political science. The end of his service came but he reneged on their plan and instead joined the Air Force, which lead them surprisingly to Colorado Springs.

Despite Mimi’s disappointment and after many shed tears, she began to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings. Together, she and Don discovered a passion for falconry, one which they shared with their boys, coming of age in the 1950’s. (I found this fascinating). Mimi rushed headfirst into raising her children all on her own without the help of nannies, family anyone. She would raise her boys to be cultured through art, music, nature and as more children came (if Don had his way Mimi would be pregnant forever) she worked even harder at being the best mother anyone could be; their clan would be the ‘model’ American family. Her passion for motherhood knew no bounds! It fed her ego, there was a special pride in ‘being known as a mother would could easily accomplish such a thing’, raising such a brood with unwavering determination and love. Why such a large family, well if it made Don happy, it was her joy to provide more offspring. Personally, as a mother with two children I found her enthusiasm and energy incredible, I get tired just thinking about it.

The dynamic in the couples marriage changed, Don’s career in intelligence yet another thing to keep Mimi at a distance, while she remained the rock for the children through the years, the one left to supervise, a ‘happy warrior’. But her dream of perfect children, everyone in line, the ‘model American family’ was about to shatter. Battling the common childhood illnesses like chicken pox, everyone knowing their chores, cooking, cleaning, for a large family is a mean feat but battling a little understood mental illness in a time where there wasn’t much compassion to be found in anyone straying from the social norms was a terrible mark against you. When the cracks first appeared in the eldest, most adored son (the namesake Don Jr.) who often watched his siblings, bullying them, setting them up against each other, it was largely ignored. The busy family didn’t have time for squabbles, the father’s favorite was believed. Even when he would smash dishes, and act out with violence, Don and Mimi behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, confusing and horrifying the other children. Something was wrong, no one knew it more than Donald himself. He would take the mental disturbances with him away to college, where it would soon show itself.

With the two older boys eventually out of the house, and Don Sr’s professional prospects, order had to be maintained, there could be no admittance of anything being off kilter. Such a thing is a stain that could ruin Don’s career and the Galvin’s social standing. Maybe the boys wreaked havoc, ending in bruises when they were home visiting, but ‘boys will be boys’ and need to become men and stand on their own. Then Don Jr fell apart, again and again, and it was no longer easy to deny something was wrong, not when it could no longer be hidden from the public too. He would never climb out of his illness, despite medicine, science, doctors best efforts. Worse, the abuse their daughters suffered in silences, denial. The embarrassment of their brother’s illness a thing they felt ashamed about and resentful of.

I can’t do justice in a review, it’s hard to summarize what the entire Galvin family went through, the hope, the fear, the denial and sexual abuse. I think about those decades, where mothers were often blamed for any sign of mental decline, where shame was all that mental illness bought you. When turning to doctors often did more harm than good, even now medication that is meant to help navigate mental illnesses do the body, all it’s organs so much harm, but there aren’t many alternatives beyond avoiding medication altogether and that leaves you exactly in the same abyss you started from. It victimizes the person coping with the illness, but you can’t ignore the voices of the family members that are forced to cope with the illness too. Children that are neglected because the illness consumes so much energy within the family, the physicality of it. Science isn’t moving fast enough, despite leaps like studying the Galvins and why schizophrenia claimed some of the children and not others. It feels too late for the Galvins in many ways. As much as we make judgments about Mimi and Don’s attempt to pretend everything is normal, how can we not empathize, imagining being in their place. Parenting is difficult enough, much of what we deny is fear motivated, comes form a place of love, and sure sometimes our own egos.

I’m always drawn to stories and studies about mental illness. I have a schizophrenic uncle, my own son is on the autism spectrum (he isn’t the only one in our extended family)… but for my uncle, I have seen how people fear mental illness, the hopelessness of my grandmother (when she was still alive) and yet immense love and support for her son who would not take his medication, and lives the life of a loner, often taken advantage of and there is nothing anyone can do. There is so much we do not know, and it’s hard for many to trust doctors when some of their treatments have done more harm than good. It can feel overwhelming and hopeless, your choices limited. Of course we aim to fix things, who wants to watch their family member suffer. It is reality still that with diseases people often find public support, compassion yet where there is mental illness most reactions are fear based and the public often judges those coping with it a ‘lost cause’. It’s the terrible result of little education. Doctors can only treat as well as the scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, but behind the illness are very real human beings.

This book is heartbreaking, and I have great admiration for all the Galvin children (those still alive are full grown adults now, of course). This is really their story. They own it, they live in the aftermath and each makes choices based on their own emotional compass. Their story broke my heart and it will stay with me. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: April 7, 2020

Doubleday Books

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC. I first heard of this book on a blog and the story really intrigued me (I was excited to find it available for request on NG). It follows the Galvins who moved to Colorado after WWII. Don and Mimi Galvins proceeded to have twelve children over the next twenty years. What is so tragically fascinating is the fact that six of their children were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Galvins became one one first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Schizophrenia is a difficult mental disorder to diagnose. For half of the children in one family to receive this, how can it not be studied? Samples of the Galvin’s DNA is studied to this day in order to continuously learn about schizophrenia. This story is heartbreaking, but incredibly well done. I recommend this story to anyone who has an interest in mental health.

I could not put this book down. The subject of any mental illness and its prevalence in families is a particular interest of mine. The Galvins with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, became a case study that provided the National Institute of Mental Health with more information than they'd ever had before. The children born between 1945-1965, suffered not only from their illness but also at the hands of the science at the time.

Fascinating and terrifying and sad. I learned a lot about schizophrenia which i appreciated. And I learned more about how awful it was/is to be a woman in the patriarchy.