Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

As a Psycholoy major who has worked with people who suffer from Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder I found this book fascinating and sad. Twelve children and ten boys, six of whom were diagnosed and treated for Schizophrenia. And this was during a time when experts didn’t agree on how to help or what was causing this. I actually admired Mimi (the mother) for continuing to try to help her sons, even when she was being blamed for their condition. The author did a great job portraying the stress on the “well” siblings. The chapters dealing with the medical research became more and more detailed until I wasn’t really able to follow them.

A honest, empathetic account of the Galvin family. Extraordinary resilience by the two sisters who advocated to preserve their family history. Having relatives with schizophrenia, I have a newfound understanding of the disease. The hope of research and medicine and mental health counseling is indelible.

This was a lot of information. wow
Interesting but a lot.

Fascinating account of one family who was just decimated by schizophrenia. Don and Mimi Galvin had 12 (!) children and had dreams of raising an all-American family. But 6 of the 12 ended up with schizophrenia, leading to violence, stress, and destruction of the family unit.
The book goes between the heartbreaking chronology of each new case of a brother becoming schizophrenic to descriptions of the studies that have been done in the medical-psychiatric-scientific community to try to understand it, treat it, and hopefully prevent it. There's so much we still don't understand about how the brain works.

fascinating and heartbreaking