Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

Book Review

Is there anything better than puppies and books? 🥰

Huge thank you to Penguin Random House for sending me this gifted copy of Hidden Valley Road, an Oprah’s Bookclub selection as well as one of Obama’s favorite books of 2020. The paperback edition of Hidden Valley Road is available now.

The book follows the true story of the Gavin family, who “could be the most mentally ill family in America”. Living in the post-WW2 era, Don and Mimi worked hard to provide a comfortable, picture-perfect life for their family. While they tried to project a veneer of familial harmony to the world, behind the scenes, their family was breaking at the seams as violent outbursts, domestic abuse and chaos ensued. One after another, six of their ten boys were diagnosed as schizophrenic. At a time when the disease was still widely misunderstood and the medication used to treat it often proved as harmful as it did helpful, the Gavin family (and their DNA) served as a crucial data point for the advancement of scientific research and treatment of schizophrenia.

As someone whose very interested in psychology and understanding how the brain works, I was really looking forward to reading this one. While I certainly learned a lot, the extremely heavy subject matter combined with the very detailed scientific explanations made this a bit of a tough read for me. However, the Gavin family’s story is certainly an interesting one. The book is incredibly well-researched and for those interested in psychology and/or the science of mental illness, this is a must read (so long as you can handle the content warnings).

CW: severe mental illness, sexual abuse, incest, suicide, homicide, pedophilia, physical violence, death of a loved one

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

What was the last nonfiction books you read?