Hidden Valley Road

In Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker explores the tragic story of a mid-century American family with twelve children, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health, and their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia from the era of institutionalization to the search for genetic markers. The book is a revelation about the history of mental health treatment, trauma, and family, and a more-than-worthy follow-up to Kolker's brilliant Lost Girls.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 06 May 2021
Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Unforgettable: The Times


Grippingly told and brilliantly reported


Mail on Sunday


Startlingly intimate


Sunday Times


Fascinating


Daily Mail


Groundbreaking


Evening Standard


Exceptional and moving


Spectator


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


One of the New York Times
20 most anticipated books of 2020: 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 the disease.


An extraordinary case study and tour de force of reporting.


-Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind


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 sch.

Weight: 282g
Dimension: 129 x 196 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781787473829