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A review by semeyers
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
I have put off reviewing this book for quite a while, mostly for want of the words to accurately describe it. Many other reviewers here have summed up my feelings much more eloquently, so I'll try to keep things short and sweet here.
Hidden Valley Road was riveting, heartbreaking, and infuriating all in one. The Galvin family, made up of Mimi, Don, and their 12(!!) children - 10 boys and 2 girls - had the extraordinary misfortune to have 6 of their boys diagnosed with schizophrenia at a time when mental illnesses were treated as shameful and were not well understood by the medical community. We learn that even having a single child sent to a mental institution could ostracize an entire family from the community. As a result, the Galvin parents desperately try to keep up with the Jones' while their home life is falling apart. Don throws himself into his work and charitable causes, while Mimi focuses so much on her sick boys - determined to keep them at home - that her well children are left to endure horrifying neglect and abuse by their siblings.
Throughout the novel you bounce back and forth between the family and the medical professionals working behind the scenes, researching treatments for schizophrenia. You learn that the treatments were sometimes worse than the symptoms themselves and regularly led to patient deaths from the side effects.
As stated in other reviews, the author here does have a clear bias towards one of the family members. Whether from a true bias or just as a consequence of only having access to so few living Galvins, I could not tell. I also felt the author went a little easy on Don, often laying blame solely on Mimi unfairly. These instances are what made me take off a star.
Overall, this one is a highly recommended read. It is a heavy one though!
Hidden Valley Road was riveting, heartbreaking, and infuriating all in one. The Galvin family, made up of Mimi, Don, and their 12(!!) children - 10 boys and 2 girls - had the extraordinary misfortune to have 6 of their boys diagnosed with schizophrenia at a time when mental illnesses were treated as shameful and were not well understood by the medical community. We learn that even having a single child sent to a mental institution could ostracize an entire family from the community. As a result, the Galvin parents desperately try to keep up with the Jones' while their home life is falling apart. Don throws himself into his work and charitable causes, while Mimi focuses so much on her sick boys - determined to keep them at home - that her well children are left to endure horrifying neglect and abuse by their siblings.
Throughout the novel you bounce back and forth between the family and the medical professionals working behind the scenes, researching treatments for schizophrenia. You learn that the treatments were sometimes worse than the symptoms themselves and regularly led to patient deaths from the side effects.
As stated in other reviews, the author here does have a clear bias towards one of the family members. Whether from a true bias or just as a consequence of only having access to so few living Galvins, I could not tell. I also felt the author went a little easy on Don, often laying blame solely on Mimi unfairly. These instances are what made me take off a star.
Overall, this one is a highly recommended read. It is a heavy one though!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Addiction
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Murder, and Sexual assault