I recently finished reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation which was certainly one of the darker books I’ve stumbled upon. After reading the last page, I immediately started hunting online for books to wash the sour taste out of my reading mouth. I failed on my goal because, that weekend, I found myself walking out of the bookstore with one of the darkest, if not the darkest, non-fiction books I have ever read. Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road was a fantastically well-researched and executed book that covers the history of schizophrenia by zooming in on the narrative of one particular family.
Hidden Valley Road covers the story of one Colorado couple who had twelve children, six of whom developed schizophrenia. At the time of this narrative, little was known about schizophrenia or what caused it. One of the most intense debates between researchers at the time of the Galvin family’s narrative was whether the illness was caused by nature or nurture. To answer that question, some researchers started looking at specific affected families even though the majority believed this would be ineffective for generalizing a cause. The Galvin family, however, was especially unique because they had multiple affected and unaffected children. So, when researchers discovered this family, many previously unknowns regarding the illness were able to be properly investigated.
Kolker structures the book in a manner that alternates between the horrific story manifesting in the Galvin household and the ongoing debates between researchers in the mental health community. My experience in the past with books that have been structured with a dual narrative has generally resulted in me taking a significant interest in one of the narratives while being apathetic to the other.
Hidden Valley Road is an exception to that trend as the chapters following the research community were incredibly insightful, well structured, and also provided a break from the many dark scenes described in the Galvin family chapters. It doesn’t take much imagining to conceptualize how difficult it must have been for everyone in that household to live with so much illness, and I’m even more sure the author spent a great amount of effort deciding how to narrate so many lives and stories. The stories described were dark, horrific, and saddening to read. I emphasized with everyone in the family, both those who were affected and unaffected because, in a way, everyone was plagued by the illness.
The book is also well written in a manner that helps the reader follow the different narratives of all 14 household members. Certain characters received focus at different times of the book and this choice made it significantly easier to follow the plot. It was also generally true that some children were talked about far more than others, but I believe that it was a justified sacrifice to keep the book within a reasonable length while avoiding the need to laundry list stories.
Extra emphasis was also placed on the scrutiny that Mary Galvin, the mother of all twelve children, received throughout her lifetime. In a world where mental illness was largely swept under the rug until recent times, I wonder how much this narrative would have differed if the Galvin children were born today. Mary Galvin faced a lot of scrutiny and direct blame for what happened to her children. Kolker ensured that he covered all sides of the arguments and made it especially clear how each of the interviewed children felt about their mother throughout the course of their lives.
Rating: 5/5