Shocking and powerful. Extremely insightful. Well researched. A truly masterful written account of the history of schizophrenia research through one family’s devastating battle with the disease.

I found this story absolutely fascinating as a health care professional and have been talking about it and recommending it to many of my colleagues. It did start to feel long though, and I know that would especially been true had I not been in health care. I do think this was an important story to be told and most people would enjoy learning about the Galvin family.

Tragic. A very difficult read. Utterly fascinating and extremely well written. Highly recommend to everyone who asks for recommendations.

This book is the true story of a family from Colorado Springs, the Galvins, who have 12 children (10 boys, two girls), six of whom develop schizophrenia, and traces their history as well as the greater history of treatment for schizophrenia in the US. It's very solid, both well-researched and well-told, but never rose to greatness and kind of loses steam at the end.

** spoiler alert ** CW: sexual assault, rape

I have quite a few issues with this book.

As a woman, the way the sexual abuse was slowly brought to light was kind of gross. It seemed more like Kolker found it to be juicy and interesting rather than horrific. In fact, it wasn't until he had already described several assaults on the girls that he actually used the words rape and sexual assault. When later addressing the sexual assault of the male child(ren) there was none of the same... relish. This choice was, at best, pretty oblivious.

The ending was way too long. I don't care about the petty squabbles of these now adult children. In general, the narrative didn't seem focused. Everything needed to be more streamlined toward what Kolker was trying to say because, in the end, I'm still not even sure what that was.

The most interesting stuff was the science about trying to understand schizophrenia. The family stories, while often interesting and frequently disturbing, were also, at times, overdetailed and superfluous.

First the good, of which there was quite a bit. The most important being highlighting mental illness and how it affects "normal" people, how no one chooses to be mentally ill and that it is most likely caused by a physical set of genes that are "switched" on by environmental factors.

The stigma against mental illness NEEDS to STOP. It's not something to be ashamed about, just like having cancer isn't something to be ashamed about.

This book also highlights how Big Pharma IS really only in it for the money, as there was a drug that looked like it could really help those with schizophrenia, but since it was going to be out of patent soon, they didn't want to touch it. So many people suffering needlessly with being untreated or treated with drugs that have horrible side effects.

Also a cause for hope, choline supplements for pregnant woman may help the brain of the growing baby so the part that if underdeveloped could be a factor in schizophrenia, develops properly. It won't hurt the baby or the mother and it can help the baby's brain to develop properly. Choline is a component found in food and can be just as important as folic acid is thought to be.

However, a few things stood out to me as not being as scientific as possible, though they were not items that were in direct relation to mental illness and the study of it. These two things were from an advanced copy, so they may not be in the final copy.

1) While discussing the head injury during a hockey game of one of the brothers, the author states that his occipital lobe was destroyed/damaged badly. The boy's eye was hanging out of his head, I think the author meant orbital bone, as the occipital lobe is a part of the brain and if that was destroyed/damaged, there would be bigger problems that didn't involve the eye.

2) Statins were touted as amazing. They are not. I won't get into it here, but long story short, they hurt a loved one of mine and started their decline.

Now, on to the family whose lives are intertwined with the stuff of schizophrenia, who take up a good portion of this book.

Basic story, 12 children, 10 boys, two girls who were the youngest; not raised in what many might consider well, properly or with any idea of how to raise that many children, in a rather abusive situation. The children were abused in various ways by either each other or a trusted friend of the family. The children had the genetic pre-disposition for schizophrenia and had the "right" triggers to set it off and six of the 10 boys developed it. This is the story of how the family tried to cope with it.

I Buddy Read this with a friend and would text them when I got to a particularly hard part to read, about the abuse and how the mom and dad were pretty clueless and terrible as parents, failing to keep their kids safe. I'm not a parent, so have no idea how I would deal with a child, let alone one with a mental illness, and the 12 children were born from 1945-1965, so parenting was different back then and mental illness was not as understood as it is today. It's not greatly understood today, but more-so than back then.

Still, if your younger kids are begging to not be left home alone with the older ones because they hurt the younger ones, do you go to your stupid cocktail party or do you find someone else to watch the kids?!? These parents ignored the younger kids and did their own thing. That infuriated me. A lot of what these parents did infuriated me.

Oh, and the book starts off with the mom about to do something that seems VERY abusive to a wild animal. TRIGGER WARNING...

She is going to sew the eyes of a majestic falcon SHUT because that's the first step in falconry apparently?!? And they talk about falconry throughout the entire book, so be warned, it's in there. After reading that bit, I knew it was going to go downhill fast. Sorry if your thing is falconry, but to me in my opinion, take it for what that's worth, it's barbaric. I hope that practice has been updated to something more modern and less horrifying.

This book could trigger a reader if they had a bad childhood, or it could make the reader incredibly thankful that their childhood wasn't half as bad as the ones portrayed in this book. Or both. I would say some of the time I was incredibly angry with the parents and how they reacted, or didn't, to the problems their kids were having and the rest of the time I sympathized them, because they had no idea how to deal with their ill children and were overwhelmed with it all. Most of the time I was angry with them though. My Buddy Reader is a parent and they were livid at how horrible the parents were. Can't say I disagreed.

This book is NOT an easy read. Animal abuse, child abuse, rape, incest, adultery; all in one family. But this book does highlight the need for more study into mental health issues and it highlights that those who suffer from mental illness are human beings, not just "crazies" to shove into a home and drug into oblivion.

The more we talk about mental illness and work on how to treat those suffering with it and their loved ones with dignity and respect, we help to stamp out the stigma. This book is important for that reason alone and my heart goes out to that family who suffered and were so brave to let their story be known so that others could be helped. Not to mention their willingness to be tested repeatedly so hopefully science can come up with a way to treat schizophrenia better.

This is a book about abuse, mental illness and surviving. It is incredibly important and I highly recommend it. 4 stars, because I was super angry with the animal abuse and the parents ignoring their kids until it was too late.

My thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

This book is fascinating, although at times a little dry. Before reading this book, I knew very little about the history of schizophrenia and the idea that it could be blamed on bad parenting. I can only imagine the terror this family must have felt watching son after son be struck down with this horrible illness and not having medical or community support. This book is a great look at the effects schizophrenia can have on a family, but I wish it had been less clinical. Still, it's an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Interesting subject that comes from the heart and captivates the reader. I love when offers offer a unique perspective.

This book was so interesting! I couldn't put it down and have been recommending this to all my non-fiction readers at the library. I went ahead and ordered a few copies. Thank you!

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fascinating glimpse into a family's nightmare of dealing with six brothers who were all diagnosed with schizophrenia, how they dealt with it, and the research in which they were involved. Reminiscent of Henrietta Lacks' story, this book dealt not just with the family, but with the path that schizophrenia research has been on since the 1800's and how having access to so many siblings in one family with healthy siblings also has helped in this.

I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in mental health, research, or family stories.

A fascinating but harrowing tale about a post-WWII American family with a dozen children, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over decades, the disease ravaged the Galvin family, with consequences for every one of its members, healthy or not. As other reviewers have mentioned, this book is Henrietta Lacks-like, in that the narrative about the Galvins' is interspersed with descriptions of researchers' efforts to unlock the secrets of this debilitating disorder (in part, by studying this unfortunate family). A very interesting - albeit tragic - story. My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

Truly, utterly heartbreaking and eye-opening; this is a an essential novel in understanding (or, trying to) Schizophrenia. And not just that, but grief, familial bonds, and mental illness in general!

I enjoyed this book. It was a bit slow and dry, but the story was interesting and the lives of the Galvin family, intertwined with the psychiatric history of schizophrenia was well constructed.

This title was nominated for our library's Lit Prize. It is smart, highly readable, and takes a look at the way we currently understand and study schizophrenia. It also reconfigures our understanding of the condition and gives insights into the nuanced ways we can move forward to better understand the condition.

Hidden Valley Road is a well-written, yet often upsetting, story about one family devastated by mental illness.

Mimi and Don Galvin were married in 1945 and had (12) children. The first (10) were boys and the last (2) were girls. The family, at least in the 50s and 60s seemed to be an all American family. Don a driven man, military service and then a successful businessman. He was a womanizer and rarely home but, wife Mimi, held down the fort overseeing things on the home front. Things changed in the 1970s when (6) of the couple's boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. As the sons behavior and violence grew more out of control, they boys spent time in hospitals as their diagnosis was not well understood. Their story became the subject of research by the National Institute of Health.

The author does a great job with research and interviews from medical professionals to family members. Everyone from Mimi to all of the adult siblings spoken often had different stories to report. I was fascinated by the more technical aspects of this book regarding mental illness advances and breakthroughs. I found it difficult to get through some of the details in which the young sisters were sexually abused by older brothers when they were as young as 5 years of age. Some of the abuse was pretty specific.

I couldn't help from being a bit judgmental as I read. I didn't understand Mini's mindset. She had a husband who was rarely home, he was a womanizer and yet she bore (12) children with him. How do you fail to protect your other younger or more vulnerable children from the violent ones suffering from mental illness. I definitely can't say that I'm happy I read this book. Not only was it upsetting at times it also felt repetitive as well. Again, while the medical component was deep and informative, I would have preferred more editing and less detail about the harsh reality of the family dysfunction.

http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2020/07/hidden-valley-road-inside-mind-of.html

I work in the area of mental health and often see either genetic syndromes or situations where a family has multiple affected members. That is what drew me to this book initially. I found a sad, interesting, incredible and fascinating story of the real lives of this family. This was not a book that I was able to read in one sitting but in chunks of it over time. It was too real in a way to take it all in at one reading.
This was an incredibly done book that I will highly recommend, especially for those readers that loved Educated by Tara Westover.
#HiddenValleyRoad #Netgalley #Doubleday

I really took my time with this book, because it was so well written and researched. And not presented in a statistical analytical fashion, but through real heartache and emotion. Robert Kolker is a brilliant story teller, and I can’t wait to see what is next.
The Galvin family will stay in my head for a long time, because this could be anyone of us under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

A fascinating look into the tragic story of the Galvin family. 6 of the 12 children in the family were diagnosed with schizophrenia at a time when mental illness was understood and tolerated even less than it is today. This book shares how the family coped and what they did to contribute to the research of the disease.

This was a multifaceted and engaging look at a large family (12 children), of whom six developed schizophrenia. While much of the background on the family’s life introduced the unfolding of the illness in each Galvin son, the narrative covered more details than felt necessary to this reviewer. With the timeframe covering the 1950’s to the present though, much of the information on the evolving treatment and developing research of the disease was fascinating.

12 children, 6 of whom eventually suffer from schizophrenia, grow up in a military family in Colorado Springs. While their parents clearly believe their family is special and believe everybody is okay, things eventually fall off the rails as half the children show signs of schizophrenia. Individual attention is scarce and the dynamic of ten boys and two girls is fraught with violence, both sexual and physical. We find out how each member was affected from their perspective as adults and how each copes in the aftermath. Interwoven in the family saga is in-depth research into schizophrenia, detailing the history, philosophical attitudes toward the disease, treatments both past and present, highlighting how far the field has come and how little we still know. Totally worth the read!