Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road is a deep cut into the way we view schizophrenia, mainly in the past half-century. His story follows that of the Galvin family, headed by Mimi and Don in which they parented 12 children - yes, 12 - where half of them are eventually diagnosed with varying degrees of schizophrenia.

For me, this book was a fairly slow start as Kolker first sets up the history between Mimi and Don, where we can already see cracks forming in their partnership. But, once Donald - their first son - was born, things quickly spiraled from there. My main appreciation for this book was Kolker's writing. Whether it comes to complicated family interactions or translating complex technical and medical discoveries for the layman. It very rarely dragged, and at times, it almost felt like time was moving too fast through the pages. I never felt lost or overwhelmed until the

gene

discoveries were made, but that's probably because my eyes glaze over during that subject at any time, so that's not Kolker's cross to bear. He also handles very sensitive topics, such as

sexual assault

, tactfully, and it's clear Kolker took great care in making his interviewees comfortable when discussing these events.

As for the downsides, there were only two major ones. One of which other reviewers have also brought up multiple times, but I wish that there was more discussion of the personal thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of other family members other than the two youngest daughters, which are Kolker's focuses throughout the story. I understand the difficulty in interviewing people with schizophrenia, especially people with as severe cases as some of the Galvin sons had, but it almost felt like half the story was missing without their opinions and ideas presented really at all.

The other is that, despite the many decades of devoted scientific work it feels as though... Not much happened? Again, I can't blame this on Kolker at all, I went into this book understanding it wasn't going to "crack the case on schizophrenia" at all, but there sadly wasn't much more than,

"It's genetic! Don't know much more beyond that!"

that I was already fairly aware of before I cracked this open. However, it was very intriguing to learn the details, and how there's already been steps taken to "cure" schizophrenia before it can even manifest, which was properly mind-boggling. I can tell Kolker put in an immense amount of research and time interviewing to condense that much scientific labor in such a readable and condensed format, and I suppose the slight frustration with feeling like no progress has been made is also kind of the point too.

Overall, this is a fascinating and very digestible read that will leave you just as hopeful as upset with everything these parents and twelve children went through. An enlightening and humble book, I would highly recommend Kolker's work to anyone interested in the history of mental illnesses and the monumental cultural and scientific changes that America has seen in the past 60 years. 4.25/5 stars.

Content Warnings

lindsii's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

I picked this book up thinking it would only be about the family’s experience of schizophrenia and the influences to research. Realistically, it ended up feeling more like a book about family trauma. I wish there had been more influence from the brothers in the book who had schizophrenia, but the main sources were the sisters who did not have schizophrenia. The chapters about the research and pharmaceutical companies were some of the best chapters in the book.

Content Warnings