families, but also to readers of the book who are reminded that even in the darkest times, there is still light, however faint. This brief description of Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road shouldn’t give you the wrong idea. Yes, it is a difficult, at times frightening book. It is, however, also powerful and enthralling, providing a valuable window not only into mental illness, but behind the closed doors of an archetypal family. As Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Book Review by Robert Wiersema HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD by Robert Kolker Lost Girls, the first book by New York journalist Robert Kolker, was something of a sensation when it was published in 2013. An account of the unsolved murders of five sex workers, linked to a man dubbed the Long Island Serial Killer, the book was a New York Times bestseller and presaged the boom in true crime documentaries and podcasts (the book received the Netflix treatment earlier this year). Part of the reason for the book’s success and strength is that Kolker took a very different approach to the material. Rather than focusing on the murderer – who remains unidentified – Kolker instead focused on the backgrounds, lives and families of the victims, and the changing technologies (including Craigslist and Backpage) which took sex work even further into the shadows and contributed to the murders. With his new book, Hidden Valley Road, Kolker takes a similar approach to even greater effect. The book, which is already a New York Times bestseller and has been included in Oprah’s Book Club, focuses on the Galvin family of Colorado Springs, Colorado (the title refers to the address of the family home): Mimi, Don and their 12 children − 10 boys and two girls. On the surface, the Galvin family is the archetypal post-war American family, growing in an age of progress and increasing prosperity. Behind closed doors, however, the family was the stuff of American tragedy: six of the 10 boys were eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Their lives and their conditions created a harrowing, often terrifying environment. The eldest son Donald, for example, shaves his head and wears a bedsheet ‘in the style of a monk’. “Donald is consumed by religious matters...spends much of each day and many nights reciting in full voice the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer,” walking miles around the neighbourhood each day. As more and more of the sons begin to suffer, the family becomes the nucleus for sexual abuse, violence and frequent institutionalization. The story of the Galvins is harrowing, and often terrifying, but Kolker never resorts to sensationalism, finding a core of humanity and family, particularly in the lives of the daughters who struggle to reckon with the family curse, and with Mimi the matriarch, trying – though frequently misguided – to keep the family together. It’s a vivid, often stunning portrait of American life and family struggles over the course of the second half of the 20th century. And the book is not without hope. Threaded through the family saga is an inquiry into the nature of schizophrenia, and discoveries into its potential roots and possible avenues for treatment. At the centre of this storyline is research into the genetic source of schizophrenia, an angle of investigation in which the Galvins played a major role, participating in medical research, sampling and analysis to create a vital part of the investigatory database. It’s a surprising redemptive arc, and one which gives hope not only to those suffering from schizophrenia and to their CSANews | SUMMER 2020 | 57
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