You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
CW: main topic is on mental illness. The narrative also goes into descriptions of incidents/occurrences of child molestation, murder/suicide, rape, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic abuse as part of the family and anyone else associated with the Galvins'.
The way that the story of the Galvins is told against the backdrop of these psychological explorations is very well done -- we get context around what's going on in the industry at the time and then see how it directly affects the family. Each child develops schizophrenia differently, which makes so much sense. I didn't expect this much variance within one family, but my symptoms of BP2 vs other's that I've talked to vastly differ, and it's why both diagnoses are so hard to diagnose and treat. I had a hard time sympathizing with Mimi. I agree with her daughters' question of why did she have so many kids? To me, that felt like they were implying that she had too many to be able to care for all of them well. Her care and focus on the mentally ill children at the expense of the "normal" children was frustrating, in addition to her excusing Jim's molesting at least 3 of her kids because of his schizophrenia and then also turning their disclosures into a story about her own experiences. Her attitude of "well someone's always got it worse" is probably true, but also not what her children needed or wanted to hear. This narrative demonstrated how devastating mental illness is on not just the mentally ill person, but their families too. I felt incredibly vindicated that Don and Joe immediately believe Margaret and Mary/Lindsay, especially because Mimi refused to believe them at first. It didn't make up for the rough childhoods that Margaret and Lindsay endured, even though they were basically saved by the Garys, but I still felt relieved that they didn't have both parents against them.
To be honest, I had a hard time keeping track of all the brothers throughout most of the book, especially the "normal" brothers. I appreciated that there was always some little identifier in addition to the brother's name (i.e. John the music teacher, Richard the schemer, etc). But even still, I forgot who was who. I came away from this story feeling more than ever, that while mental illness is not within a person's control, their actions of abuse, violence, etc are not acceptable. While I think research and knowledge about schizophrenia was severely limited while the kids were growing up, Mimi and Don's refusal to acknowledge that their sons were sick made everything worse, but it's very Boomer era (in my experience as someone with a parent from the Boomer era). I think when someone is mentally ill and they don't know what they're doing, that's one thing. If they hurt someone, they need to be contained and controlled. However, I got the feeling that while Jim was plagued by schizophrenia, there was also malicious intent. He never felt like he could measure up to Donald and he turned his resentment, insecurity, and anger onto his youngest siblings. I cannot even imagine growing up in a house where there's rampant violence, only exacerbated by mental illness. The fact that the girls and eventual grandkids have to be locked in the closet or the parents' bedroom was...yikes. While it was never said that Mimi and Don said this, there was a bit of a "boys will be boys" attitude in the house. They refused to mediate until the violence was out of control. I can't pretend to know what it's like raising 12 kids, especially without a lot of money, but I was also pretty puzzled at why Mimi didn't try to mitigate the chances of getting pregnant? I felt like the speculation and details on that were a little fuzzy; I suspect even Mimi wasn't 100% aware of why she kept going, even after her OBGYN said stop. Emotional introspection was not a huge strength of that era + there was a lot going on -- a lot of infidelity, expectations, dashed hopes, doggedness, etc. I can say though that Mimi never abandoned her children. Even if her execution was poor at times and she was certainly not perfect, but after finding out that 6/12 kids has schizophrenia, she could've just walked out, and she didn't. She assumed the main caretaker role in the entire family, even after Don gets sick. And I admire that.
I really admired Margaret and Lindsay getting out of their abusive situations at home and moving on. Lindsay recognizes that she's done enough work to be able to give back and somewhat forgive her brothers for what happened in their childhoods. Margaret seems to need more detachment from them, period, which is also valid. Lindsay assumes much of the responsibility for the care of her surviving brothers once Don and Mimi's health starts to decline. I think her trying to help Peter is touching and I thought she made a valiant effort. It was heartbreaking to hear that doctors later suspected that yo-yoing the drugs -- take them, stop taking them, take them, stop taking them -- probably actually did more harm than good. There were implications that the drugs her brothers were on ended up killing them, at pretty young ages to (50-55), with the exception of Bryan in the murder-suicide incident. Honestly, I'm actually astounded that Donald lived as long as he did. But that also just goes to show that medications affect people differently, even if they're the same ones, and that the same medications didn't work for all the brothers either. It's so complicated.
I think what really won me over with this book is it felt so well-researched and the author manages to humanize the family and individuals as well as describe the severe dysfunction within the family dynamic. The personal and informative aspects of the book are just woven so well together. I really felt for the family members who were collateral damage of the chaos of having so many mentally ill siblings -- I actually connected to that aspect of the story really strongly. I think the secondary effects of mental illness on the caretakers get totally dismissed/minimized, and that can be really frustrating. It clearly had effects on the 6 Galvin children who weren't mentally ill and left them feeling sidelined and undervalued.
When I saw this on my GR, I couldn't not read it. The premise grabbed me immediately, and it did not disappoint.
Spoiler
Ok. Holy shit, wow this book. Definitely not for everyone, but for someone who's interested in abnormal psychology, particularly mental illnesses, this was fascinating. A family of 12 kids, 10 boys and 2 girls, and 6 of the boys have schizophrenia. They're all boomer babies, and I cannot imagine growing up with severe or even moderate mental health issues during this time. The treatments, medications, and attitude around mental illness/health is just so jarring for me. Of course, I knew that the ethics around scientific discoveries is murky, but I think what also gets me is how the medications that were prescribed at the time were unreliable and had awful side effects. It makes me wonder what I'd pick if I had been diagnosed with BP2 in the 70's 80's or even 90's. I read another book about a professor with BP1 who experienced going through these psych industry "growing pains" and her descriptions of the side effects sound miserable. Weighing out do I want to lessen the chaos going on in my brain, but become obese, develop a tremor later in life, potentially do more harm to myself than good? I know that my symptoms would've become more pronounced/extreme without medication over the years. But what's "bad enough"?The way that the story of the Galvins is told against the backdrop of these psychological explorations is very well done -- we get context around what's going on in the industry at the time and then see how it directly affects the family. Each child develops schizophrenia differently, which makes so much sense. I didn't expect this much variance within one family, but my symptoms of BP2 vs other's that I've talked to vastly differ, and it's why both diagnoses are so hard to diagnose and treat. I had a hard time sympathizing with Mimi. I agree with her daughters' question of why did she have so many kids? To me, that felt like they were implying that she had too many to be able to care for all of them well. Her care and focus on the mentally ill children at the expense of the "normal" children was frustrating, in addition to her excusing Jim's molesting at least 3 of her kids because of his schizophrenia and then also turning their disclosures into a story about her own experiences. Her attitude of "well someone's always got it worse" is probably true, but also not what her children needed or wanted to hear. This narrative demonstrated how devastating mental illness is on not just the mentally ill person, but their families too. I felt incredibly vindicated that Don and Joe immediately believe Margaret and Mary/Lindsay, especially because Mimi refused to believe them at first. It didn't make up for the rough childhoods that Margaret and Lindsay endured, even though they were basically saved by the Garys, but I still felt relieved that they didn't have both parents against them.
To be honest, I had a hard time keeping track of all the brothers throughout most of the book, especially the "normal" brothers. I appreciated that there was always some little identifier in addition to the brother's name (i.e. John the music teacher, Richard the schemer, etc). But even still, I forgot who was who. I came away from this story feeling more than ever, that while mental illness is not within a person's control, their actions of abuse, violence, etc are not acceptable. While I think research and knowledge about schizophrenia was severely limited while the kids were growing up, Mimi and Don's refusal to acknowledge that their sons were sick made everything worse, but it's very Boomer era (in my experience as someone with a parent from the Boomer era). I think when someone is mentally ill and they don't know what they're doing, that's one thing. If they hurt someone, they need to be contained and controlled. However, I got the feeling that while Jim was plagued by schizophrenia, there was also malicious intent. He never felt like he could measure up to Donald and he turned his resentment, insecurity, and anger onto his youngest siblings. I cannot even imagine growing up in a house where there's rampant violence, only exacerbated by mental illness. The fact that the girls and eventual grandkids have to be locked in the closet or the parents' bedroom was...yikes. While it was never said that Mimi and Don said this, there was a bit of a "boys will be boys" attitude in the house. They refused to mediate until the violence was out of control. I can't pretend to know what it's like raising 12 kids, especially without a lot of money, but I was also pretty puzzled at why Mimi didn't try to mitigate the chances of getting pregnant? I felt like the speculation and details on that were a little fuzzy; I suspect even Mimi wasn't 100% aware of why she kept going, even after her OBGYN said stop. Emotional introspection was not a huge strength of that era + there was a lot going on -- a lot of infidelity, expectations, dashed hopes, doggedness, etc. I can say though that Mimi never abandoned her children. Even if her execution was poor at times and she was certainly not perfect, but after finding out that 6/12 kids has schizophrenia, she could've just walked out, and she didn't. She assumed the main caretaker role in the entire family, even after Don gets sick. And I admire that.
I really admired Margaret and Lindsay getting out of their abusive situations at home and moving on. Lindsay recognizes that she's done enough work to be able to give back and somewhat forgive her brothers for what happened in their childhoods. Margaret seems to need more detachment from them, period, which is also valid. Lindsay assumes much of the responsibility for the care of her surviving brothers once Don and Mimi's health starts to decline. I think her trying to help Peter is touching and I thought she made a valiant effort. It was heartbreaking to hear that doctors later suspected that yo-yoing the drugs -- take them, stop taking them, take them, stop taking them -- probably actually did more harm than good. There were implications that the drugs her brothers were on ended up killing them, at pretty young ages to (50-55), with the exception of Bryan in the murder-suicide incident. Honestly, I'm actually astounded that Donald lived as long as he did. But that also just goes to show that medications affect people differently, even if they're the same ones, and that the same medications didn't work for all the brothers either. It's so complicated.
I think what really won me over with this book is it felt so well-researched and the author manages to humanize the family and individuals as well as describe the severe dysfunction within the family dynamic. The personal and informative aspects of the book are just woven so well together. I really felt for the family members who were collateral damage of the chaos of having so many mentally ill siblings -- I actually connected to that aspect of the story really strongly. I think the secondary effects of mental illness on the caretakers get totally dismissed/minimized, and that can be really frustrating. It clearly had effects on the 6 Galvin children who weren't mentally ill and left them feeling sidelined and undervalued.
When I saw this on my GR, I couldn't not read it. The premise grabbed me immediately, and it did not disappoint.
Had to read for class, but this was REALLY good. Educational and sensitive
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
3.5/5
This was a quick intriguing read, but also very tragic. Kolker does a good job of laying out the family details, but several events were described but not explored further which felt a bit jarring. While we do get to read about how the Galvin family's illness was tied in with the medical progresses, I wished there was more of the scientific journey. Overall, this was a tough read and has several trigger warnings so my recommendation would be to tread with caution.
This was a quick intriguing read, but also very tragic. Kolker does a good job of laying out the family details, but several events were described but not explored further which felt a bit jarring. While we do get to read about how the Galvin family's illness was tied in with the medical progresses, I wished there was more of the scientific journey. Overall, this was a tough read and has several trigger warnings so my recommendation would be to tread with caution.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
This book promises to take you inside the mind of this American family, but that’s not quite what it accomplishes. For a different reader, this book might be five stars. Clearly, an extraordinary amount of research went into schizophrenia and how this baffling illness affected an American family of fourteen (!!!). This research, albeit impressive, translated into a ton of clinical discussion as the author explains how the medical understanding of schizophrenia has evolved, or rather has failed to do so. I, however, was more interested in how schizophrenia affected the family dynamic between each other and the interpersonal relationships. These parts of the book riveted me, whereas half the book had my attention wandering.