Between 1945 and 1965, twelve children were born into the Galvin family, ten boys followed by two girls. Statistically, this alone would make the Galvin family an unusual one, but this is just the beginning of their story. What makes the family a true statistical rarity is that six of the ten Galvin boys, starting with the oldest, were afflicted with schizophrenia. For decades, theirs was a household literally at war with itself, one in which brothers were constantly in the kind of physical warfare with each other that placed them and everyone else in the home in grave danger. Six of the boys, as they reached adolescence, so lost touch with reality that they became a danger to themselves and anyone who had to live with them, especially their two little sisters – who suffered the worst kind of abuse imaginable from several of their brothers.
And Don and Mimi Galvin, often victims themselves, were helpless to stop what was going on around them. This was all happening when schizophrenia was still largely a misunderstood mental illness, a time when locking up patients long enough to stabilize then with drugs or electric shock therapy before releasing them back into the world was really the only answer that doctors had. And that did not work; some patients, including more than one of the Galvins were in and out of the same hospital dozens of times until their minds were effectively fried by the drugs imposed on them. Perhaps even more tragically, two of the Galvin brothers died at age 53 of heart attacks, the cumulative effect of all the drugs they had taken for four decades.
What I, as an outsider, find most difficult to understand is how Don and Mimi Galvin could have continued to have children, almost year after year, when it should have been so obvious to them that the illness afflicting the children they already had was likely to be an inherited one. Particularly since both parents were very concerned about image and reputation, this makes no sense. Being in utter denial seems to be the only answer that makes much sense.
The good news about the Galvin family – and there is some - is that the family agreed to participate in a study in which their genetic material was studied by scientists looking for answers about the illness. What causes schizophrenia? Is it inherited or is it a product of environment (it used to be blamed entirely on an over-controlling mother)? Can the illness be prevented? The Galvin family was a goldmine for researchers because no scientist had ever found so many full-blooded sibling schizophrenics in a family before. The genetic material they provided has become central in the study to unlock some of the secrets of the illness that have plagued human history.Robert Kolker
That research continues to this day.
Bottom Line: Readers will find Hidden Valley Road fascinating for two distinct reasons. First, is that everyday life inside the Galvin family reads more like something out of a farfetched Stephen King novel than it does as something out of the real world. What those fourteen people (maybe especially the eight trying to cope with the behavior of the six schizophrenics in the family) endured for so many years was horrendous. Second, is the chronological history of our understanding of schizophrenia and its treatment that is interspersed in separate chapters throughout the book. The Galvin family is a truly remarkable one.
Wow. Six sons with schizophrenia? How would you ever cope with that? (Although it kind of sounds like they didn't.) What a heartbreaking read.
ReplyDeleteNot very well. Turns out that the youngest of the twelve children, one of the girls, is holding things together for the survivors as much as she can - but she has scars of her own to deal with.
DeleteI have the audio version and trying to decide whether print might be easier given the tough subject matter. Nice review Sam
ReplyDeleteI tried both versions and found that print worked best for the chapters on the family, and that audio worked better for the chapters that were on the scientific aspects of the disease. But that's just me.
DeleteGoodness me, just reading your review made for frightening reading, Sam. What a story! If it was fiction you would never be able to believe it. Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteIt's really hard to believe that there is actually a family like this one out there and what they suffered through together largely behind closed doors. I still cannot for the life of me figure out why the parents kept having kids for almost twenty years, knowing early on what was happening to their sons as they reached their teen years.
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