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Hidden Valley Road

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About this listen

 12 children.
6 of them diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Science's greatest hope in understanding the disease.
___________

*ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2020*

*TIME 100 Must-Read Books Of 2020 Pick*

*New York Times bestseller*

*Selected as Oprah's Book Club Pick*

'Startlingly intimate' - The Sunday Times

'Grippingly told and brilliantly reported' - Mail on Sunday

'Unforgettable' - The Times

For fans of Educated, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Three Identical Strangers

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 the other, 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 Institutes 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 amidst 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.

'An extraordinary case study and tour de force of reporting' - Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

'This book tore my heart out. It is a revelation-about the history of mental health treatment, about trauma, foremost about family-and a more-than-worthy follow-up to Robert Kolker's brilliant Lost Girls'
-Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and Give Me Your Hand

'Hidden Valley Road contains everything: scientific intrigue, meticulous reporting, startling revelations, and, most of all, a profound sense of humanity. It is that rare book that can be read again and again'
-David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon

(P)2020 Penguin Audio©2020 Robert Kolker Medical Mental Health Professionals & Academics Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Health Thought-Provoking Heartfelt Inspiring

Critic reviews

Fascinating
An exceptional and moving dissection of what this means for those forced to live with the depredations of madness
Grippingly told and brilliantly reported
A startlingly intimate account of a family ruptured from within by forces they could not control
Kolker is a fine writer and a first-class investigative journalist ... this unforgettable book will surely increase people's understanding of a terrifying disorder
Groundbreaking... Kolker uses his prodigious journalistic skills to balance his darkly riveting tale of the family's implosion against shifting attitudes to the treatment of this devastating condition
A feat of narrative journalism but also a study in empathy
Storytelling at its most immersive
All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed learning about the Galvin's family history and learning so much about mental illness. I loved the fact that there was alot of background information about how they were working on developing medication and other treatments for schizophrenic people. Being the 8th child out of nine I very much related to Lynsey and Margaret being the youngest member of a big family. that feeling of being lost never goes away.

eye opening

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This is the remarkable book that tells a story of Mini and Don Galvin and their 12 children. What is remarkable about their story is that six of these twelve children, all boys, develop schizophrenia. And they developed schizophrenia in quite different and profound ways. And this impact is also felt on the four boys and two girls who did not develop schizophrenia. However, the impact on all the family members must have had such an impact on their own well-being. And not only is this the story of this one family but also an in-depth but very readable look at the studies and change in attitudes towards mental illness, particularly amongst the science around it, which in its early days was often as ignorant as the man on the street might be nowadays - and probably more so. Intelligent men often believed the mothers were the cause of such conditions such as schizophrenia as well as autism is shocking - and it lasted for a long time. Freud himself thought it was just another aspect of the personality that could be cured although Jung showed a much greater awareness. But the story of the scientist who did start to understand that there was a biological element to this, although it could be triggered by nature, is well told. We follow the families life, from the early romance of Mimi and Don to the birth of their 12 children and then what happens throughout their lives - and for some, through to their deaths. It is a remarkable tale.

The book is full of fascinating insights. John Nash, the scientist whose story was told in ‘a beautiful mind’ and played by Russell Crowe in the film, struggled to tell the difference between reality and yet all the patterns in his mathematical equations that were remarkable might have been a result of the faulty pruning that was formed through the strange wiring in his head that resulted in both a gift and a disease. This led to Robert Freedman looking at sensory gating; to look at the idea that muscle movements not only respond but inhibit which is what stops us from falling over, but what if the brain did the same thing and couldn’t inhibit some of its thoughts that could then be harmful. The human mind could synthesize its own reality. And for some this could be overwhelming, like being overwhelmed by sounds or lights or hypersensitive meaning that the lightest touch can result in a feeling like barbed wire upon the skin. I work with children with autism and they can be over or under sensitive to sensory input (some will eat everything and others will be on a restricted diet of a few beige, plain foods - mainly carbohydrates). What if the problem with schizophrenia patients wasn’t that they lacked the ability to respond to so much stimuli but that they lacked the ability NOT to? What if their brains were not overloaded, but lacked inhibition so that they were forced to deal with every brain impulse that was coming their way, every second of every day.

Also, what if schizophrenia was like a symptom in the same way that a fever shows us that there is an underlying illness. Psychotic episodes that we associate with autism, schizophrenia, manic depression, might just a be a way of telling us that the brain is not working properly and has manifested itself as a mental health problem.

I also found the fact of how nicotine can work on certain genes such as the A7 receptor which has a special relationship with nicotine. And many people with mental health problems are often habitual smokers. Nicotine can supercharge the effect of the acetylcholine that this receptor needs to function and smokers like it when this is turbocharged. The nicotine helps to focus their minds but to turn this into medicine would require four medicines a day and pharma companies state that many with mental health problems have difficulty taking one pill a day, so smoking becomes a habit. And many people with mental health problems really do smoke a lot. I found this study fascinating.

However, in the end this book is the story told from a range of different narratives from a single family, with compassion and empathy. I was moved and glad to read this remarkable story. And the story of Lyne DeLisi is remarkable also.

A heartbreaking but illuminating story and the family with six family members with schizophrenia

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This book is very well written and narrated. It was fascinating to learn about the Galvin family!

Loved it!

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Beautifully written and read. Incredible true story. Poignant, tragic, incredible but also very relatable.

Fascinating.

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An incredible account of one family's trials, tribulations, and tenacity, in the face of the borderline unbelievable impact mental illness had on their unfolding family dynamic. Superbly written and narrated, this is a worthwhile read/listen for anyone interested in people, regardless of any background knowledge or interest in schizophrenia.

10/10, would recommend in a heartbeat!

Both heart-wrenching and heart-warming

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