The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to
Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom:
the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was
an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard
work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play
their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological
breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six
of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as
schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?
What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so
extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be
studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a
shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of
institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the
search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound
disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to
the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research
that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even
eradication of the disease for future generations.
With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert
Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love,
and hope
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