First published 2020
Don and Mimi Galvin raised twelve children in Colorado during the postwar boom years. Their eldest was born in 1945, their youngest in 1965. The family appeared to embody the American dream of prosperity and domestic success. By the mid-1970s, six of their ten sons had received schizophrenia diagnoses. The family endured psychological breakdowns, violent episodes, and concealed abuse behind their public facade. The National Institute of Mental Health selected the Galvins as research subjects due to the extraordinary concentration of mental illness in one household. Robert Kolker traces how their DNA samples contributed to decades of genetic studies that continue today. The book chronicles the evolution of schizophrenia treatment from institutionalization and lobotomy through modern genetic research. Kolker examines ongoing scientific debates about the disease's origins and nature. The Galvin story illuminates both personal tragedy and medical progress, showing how one family's suffering advanced understanding of mental illness and opened new paths toward treatment and prevention.
Genres: family, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama, academic, american-history, disability
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, medical-progress, personal-tragedy
Setting: Colorado
Period: Postwar Boom Years, 1970s
377 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: mental-illness, violence