May 2022 Edition

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
I have to force myself to look in the non-fiction section of the library. So when I picked this book up, I was curious, but had no idea the impact it would have on me. It’s a story of an American family with twelve children born between 1945 and 1965, much like my own family. Their parents, Don and Mimi Galvin, settled in Colorado on HIdden Valley Road after World War II. On the outside, this Catholic, well-bred, hard-working family seemed to have it all together. But on the inside, it was a different story. There were psychological breakdowns, violence, and sexual abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. 

  

The Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. The book delves into the history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease. The Galvins’ DNA markers have driven decades of genetic research that continues today, but still there is no known cure. The Galvins’ granddaughter continues the research that has plagued so many of her family members to this day. The National Institute of Mental Health spends only $4.3 million of their $1.4 billion budget on fetal prevention research of schizophrenia. Yet a staggering 50% of young school shooters have symptoms of developing schizophrenia.  It is also thought that ⅓ of the homeless population suffers from similar mental illness. Many of the same techniques and drugs are still used today to treat the mentally ill.  These findings are astonishing to me and I can’t seem to get this book out of my mind.  

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