Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

I'm Laura Owens.

And I'm Jan Black.

And on this episode, we're joined by journalist Robert Kolker,

author of the new book Hidden Valley Road,

inside the mind of an American family. Hidden Valley Road is a number one New York Times bestseller,

which tells the heartbreaking and at times terrifying story of the Galvin family, a family with 12

children, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Galvins were so unusual

that they were studied by the National Institute of Mental Health in an effort to learn more about

the genetic origins of schizophrenia. Their story is one of shame, denial, shock, trauma,

and misunderstanding as it relates to mental illness. Robert, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, Laura and Jan. I'm really thrilled to be talking to you. How did you first hear about

the Galvin family and decide to write their story? I had been looking for a new book to write. I'm a

journalist and author, and an old editor of mine who was also a good

friend of mine put me in touch with an old high school of friend of his. And she happened to be

the youngest member of the Galvin family. She and her sister are the only two girls in the family.

They do not have schizophrenia, but they had endured some of the more trying and challenging and difficult

and even tragic aspects of life in their house over the years. And they had been talking for

decades about the best way to let people know about their story. They also were convinced that

the family had some scientific significance because scientists had been

studying their family's genes for decades.

And so they finally decided to ask a journalist to not just write about their experiences,

...