Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

The heartrending story of a mid-century American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand or cure the disease

"Hidden Valley Road is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness."  - 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? 

"One family’s history reveals the mystery of schizophrenia. In a riveting and disquieting narrative, Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, 2013) interweaves a biography of the Galvin family with a chronicle of medicine’s treatment of, and research into, schizophrenia... A family portrait of astounding depth and empathy."  -   Kirkus

Reviews:
With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.