Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

I did not look forward to reading Hidden Valley chosen by my book group. Once I started I couldn't put it down. As they say about horrible car accidents - I couldn't look away.
I really thought the author put too much blame on the mother Mimi. Leaving your child in a state mental institution at the time was a pretty drastic solution and she did it more than once. Read the book and see what you think. It's a great book group choice. ( )

Fascinating and tragic examination of a family of 12 children, 6 of whom have schizophrenia, growing up in Colorada in the 1950s and '60s. Extensively researched and in-depth interviews with the family members. ( )

Fascinating ( )

Robert Kolker skillfully wove the incredible story of the Galvin family with the fascinating science of schizophrenia, explaining exactly how researchers' understanding of the disease has improved over time. Most interesting was learning about the evolution of this research, thanks to the tireless and passionate efforts of a few main scientists (who get the ample attention they deserve in this book). Current treatment is severely inadequate (although still better than nothing), but astounding new break-throughs in understanding the disease could make life-changing in-utero intervention a reality.

This is a nearly perfect book. Kolker wrote about the Galvins with sensitivity while holding nothing back in describing the extreme toll that schizophrenia took, not just on the six affected children but on the entire family. Kolker shared less about the psychology of the parents, particularly of the father, but this could be owing to lack of information available to him (possibly purposefully since he did conduct extensive interviews of the living family members and some others). He took a neutral, unbiased tone, and he was a true professional in his efforts to remain uncritical and respectful when discussing the use of psychiatric medication.

For a thorough and dramatic portrait of what schizophrenia looks like, Hidden Valley Road is the book to read.

Full review on Goodreads. ( )

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker is the story of the Galvin family; parents, ten sons, two daughters. Six of the family's sons have schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder whose sufferers lose touch with reality and live in a world of delusions, have hallucinations, are disorganized in their thinking and speech, and in the case of the Galvin boys, the disease may lead to abusive words and actions.

It's a fascinating and utterly horrific story. I listened to the tale on an audiobook, which I often had to pause to cry. I'm not given to crying much at fiction except in the odd book here and there (Of Mice and Men; The Book Thief). This story, however, was true, and unbelievably sad. No member of the Galvin family was left unscathed by the disease - they were either schizophrenic or the victims of one of one of their family members. There are long stretches of physical and verbal abuse, the revulsive act of childhood sexual abuse, and outright murder.

Beyond the harrowing narrative of the Galvin family is the history of schizophrenia and its treatment throughout time. The Human Genome Project and the particular genetics of multiplex families in the United States led to breakthroughs in the science of the disease. Scientists are now able to treat, in utero, fetuses that may be at danger of schizophrenia, using injections of choline to counteract problems in a patient's genetic structuring of acetycholine, the chief neurotransmitter of the parasympathetic nervous system. Without families like the Galvins science may still be struggling to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia; the choline treatment gives children the chance to grow up untouched by the illness.

The book dragged in the last few chapters. Several times I thought the book was over, only to have the narrator announce another chapter. I often wondered what else the book could possibly say, and I think that Book 3 of the story could have been made more precise and less wordy.

Hidden Valley Road was too much for me. It was very interesting, it was all-encompassing, and a fine work of non-fiction. That being said, as a bipolar woman it reminded me often of stays in the psychiatric ward, of the feeling of careening too near the cliff of absolute madness. Many of the medications used to treat schizophrenia patients are ones that I have used to counteract mania. The tragedies that this family faced made me think of my own broken family, brought to a complete divide by the dread power of mental illness. I'm stable now, but I often wonder if I will stay that way, and this book's discussion of madness and stability reminded me that every day, even with the use of psychiatric drugs and talk therapy, how close I am to that edge. ( )