OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
"Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness." —Oprah Winfrey
Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, TIME, and more
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.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento