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A review by sannermatt
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
While reading Hidden Valley Road, I think it’s very easy to judge Mimi Galvin for how she raised her children. But I had to ask myself multiple times: if I had 12 children, and half of them were schizophrenic, would I have done any better? It’s easy as an outsider looking in to point out all of the things she should have done differently, but being there in the moment was surely much different. I can’t imagine having to live through that every single day. As a reader, I was able to put this story down any time I wanted to, but for the parents of these children, Mimi most of all, there was no pause button. They were forced to live this story. Every single day.
I empathized with the whole family. No one chose this as their story, yet they were forced to live it, the boys with schizophrenia, and the rest of the family that underwent their abuse, which was so disturbing.
Reading HVR, you almost feel guilty for enjoying the story so much. You don’t enjoy what’s happening in the story, no, of course not, but it’s so engrossing and unbelievable that you can’t put it down. Robert Kolker did a great job telling this story in a respectful way while also weaving in the stories of the researchers who made headway in schizophrenia research.
I empathized with the whole family. No one chose this as their story, yet they were forced to live it, the boys with schizophrenia, and the rest of the family that underwent their abuse, which was so disturbing.
Reading HVR, you almost feel guilty for enjoying the story so much. You don’t enjoy what’s happening in the story, no, of course not, but it’s so engrossing and unbelievable that you can’t put it down. Robert Kolker did a great job telling this story in a respectful way while also weaving in the stories of the researchers who made headway in schizophrenia research.