In 'Hidden Valley Road,' A Family's Journey Helps Shift The Science Of Mental Illness
There are still many questions about schizophrenia — what it is, what causes it, and how to treat it.
One family has helped researchers take steps forward in attempts to find answers to these questions.
The Galvins seemed like a model for baby-boomer America, 12 children with a military dad and a strict but religious mother growing up in Colorado in the 1960s. But over the years, six of the boys in the family were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Writer Robert Kolker, the bestselling author of Lost Girls, tells the story of the Galvin family — and how their journey is transforming the science around the mental illness — in a new book, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family.
Interview Highlights
On seeming like the perfect family
Well, outwardly, Donald [the oldest son born in 1945] was perfect. He was the perfect son in his parents eyes. He could do no wrong. He was a football star in high school and a wrestling star. He dated the general's daughter at the Air Force Academy. He really seemed to have it all together. But he had known even in his teen years that something was off. He had a barrier between himself and other people. And then it even got worse once he went off to college. And as we know now, schizophrenia often manifests in
