I know so many people rave about how much they enjoyed this book, but for me, it was just okay. There was so much wrong in this family — and I’m not even talking about the schizophrenia — that it was a bit of a struggle to get through. Trigger warning for severe spousal abuse and child sexual abuse.
Don and Mimi Galvin set out on their married adult lives with huge dreams. They end up settling in Colorado because of Don’s work with the Air Force, and Mimi settles in to be seen as the perfect (while seemingly bored and fairly disconnected) housewife. Within twenty years, they have a dozen children: ten boys and two girls. Slowly, over the course of several years, boy after boy after boy starts having psychological breakdowns — they become violent and abusive and hear voices that no one else can — until six of the ten boys are eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Interspersed with these chapters, the author looks at the then developing field of schizophrenia research and the scientists who dedicated their lives to trying to identify what causes this debilitating disease and what medications might bring it under control.
Usually, I really like books that alternate the science with a real-life story, but this one dragged a bit for me. It was very interesting that the DNA that scientists collected from the Galvin family was so important in the research. I also understood the author’s (and researchers’) frustration at the drug companies for valuing the profit of drugs that are only somewhat effective and come with a number of debilitating side effects over the expense of research to find potential new medications that could do a better job for those living with schizophrenia. When it’s your family member who needs a better medication to extend and improve their life, the portfolios of some random investors do not take priority.
But, I also struggled with the Galvin family. Even before her sons started getting diagnosed, Mimi seemed checked out as a mother. She had children because she said Don wanted to have children, and she wanted to appear perfect to everyone around them. Whether caused by her upbringing, her own mental state, or societal pressures, after her oldest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, she didn’t seem to be able to cope with what was needed for her other children.
This was especially true for her two daughters, who were completely left behind, and not just left behind but sent away. Not that Don was any better. He was gone for long periods of time, did whatever he wanted, long-term family plans be damned, and had as little to do with his children as possible for most of their lives. The author attempts to explain a lot of this away as a sign of the times, but I’m not sure that’s enough. I think both parents shut down as they got overwhelmed with what was happening with their “picture perfect” children, and they just didn’t cope in healthy ways, much to the detriment of all of them.
Of course, since the author spent more time interviewing Mimi and her two daughters than anyone else in the family, this book was definitely more skewed toward their experiences, and I do wonder what effect that had on the direction this book went. The daughters and Mimi really seemed to have exceedingly difficult relationships with one another, and there’s obviously a lot of (earned) hurt feelings and damage. But, this makes it hard to really know if what we’re reading about the family is based on reality or on grudges and misunderstandings about people’s motivation over the years.
Interesting concept, engaging, but didn’t quite live up to the hype for me.