Book Review - Hidden Valley Road - Inside the mind of an American Family-Robert Kolker
‘Hidden valley road’ by Robert Kolker is the story of Don and Mimi Galvin of Hidden Valley Road, Colorado Springs, parents to twelve children – ten boys and two girls, with the oldest born in 1945 and the youngest in 1965. A big family, but what sets them apart is that six of the boys would go on to develop schizophrenia.
It’s difficult to put across the strain this placed on the family unit, and the amount of suffering in this household. To an outsider they seemed like any upwardly mobile American family - Don had a job with the air force, (father of the year from a local civic group 1956). Mimi was a devoted mother and homemaker.
Schizophrenia
What I found terrifying in this book was the descent of the boys, one after another, into mental illness. As well as that, there are other horrors that take place that are too difficult to recount here and at times it’s incredibly disturbing. The brothers were sporty and strong, and become increasingly out of control and violent towards one another – at one stage Donald, the oldest, picks up the dining table and throws it at his brother Jim.
This is happening at a time when not a lot is known about the disease, so a variety of treatments are tried on the Galvin boys – Institutionalisation, shock therapy and a constant list of tranquillisers. Indeed, two of the boys would die from side effects caused by the drugs. Causes are hard to identify and Nature vs Nurture is a constant debate throughout. Bad parenting on the part of Mimi is also, incredibly, mentioned as a factor here, though as one psychiatrist says, if that was the case, ‘we’d all be in big, big trouble.
Science
One of the things I found interesting in ‘Hidden valley road’ was when one of the scientists said that we were perhaps looking at schizophrenia incorrectly - in the same way a fever is a symptom of an underlying illness, could it be the same for autism and depression and perhaps it is a symptom of the brain not working correctly? Also interesting was the effect of nicotine on receptors in the brain – smoking enhances these enzymes.
Robert Kolker for me does a great job of telling the details of the families extraordinary story with a huge amount of compassion, and I also liked how he blended it with how science was progressing with its understanding of the disease. It’s not always easy to understand but I think he explains it in a way that made it more accessible to the average reader – Robert Kolker is a fantastic writer and I will certainly be looking at some of his previous titles.
Mimi
The two sisters, Mary (later Lindsay) and Margaret play a big part in the telling of ‘Hidden valley road.’’ They have a complicated relationship with Mimi, with Margaret at one stage saying of her mother that she would never choose ‘a healthy child against a sick one.’ They both are victims of one of the brothers and respond in their own ways to what they went through at home.
It is often bleak but there is hope in the way that by studying and testing some of the Galvins, scientists have been able to advance their understanding of the disease. A happy ending would have been a cure but the world doesn’t work like that and work on schizophrenia continues, and a cure, if there is such a thing, remains elusive. But early detection and intervention has greatly improved and holds out hope.
Hidden Valley Road Summary
It’s a credit to Robert Kolker that he is able to present his research on this disease whilst never forgetting about the people he is writing about. It’s a complex story that he always handles humanely.
‘Hidden valley road - inside the mind of an American family’ is a fascinating story, quite harrowing at times as you can imagine, but one well told. Also a word of praise for the narrator of the audiobook, Sean Pratt, who does a fine job.
Book review - Hidden valley road - inside the mind of an American family by Robert Kolker
Publisher : Quercus (9 April 2020)
438 Pages