The children who did not become mentally ill were, in many respects, as affected as their brothers. It is hard enough to individuate oneself in any family with twelve children; here was a family that was defined by dynamics like no other, where the state of being mentally ill became the norm of the household, the position from which everything else had to start. For Lindsay, her sister, Margaret, and their brothers John, Richard, Michael, and Mark, being a member of the Galvin family was about either going insane yourself or watching your family go insane—growing up in a climate of perpetual mental illness. Even if they happened not to descend into delusions or hallucinations or paranoia—if they didn’t come to believe that the house was under attack, or that the CIA was searching for them, or that the devil was under their bed—they felt as if they were carrying an unstable element inside themselves. How much longer, they wondered, before it would overtake them, too?
As the youngest, Lindsay endured some of the worst of what happened—left in harm’s way, directly hurt by people she thought loved her. When she was little, all she wanted was to be someone else. She could have left Colorado and started over, changed her name for real, assumed a new identity, and tried to scribble over the memory of all she went through. A different person would have gotten out as soon as she could and never come back.
And yet here Lindsay is at Point of the Pines, checking to see if the brother she once dreaded needs a heart examination, if he’s signed all the forms that need signing, if the doctor has seen him enough. She does the same for her other sick brothers, too, the ones still living. With Donald, for the length of her visit today, Lindsay pays careful attention as he wanders the halls. She worries that he is not taking good enough care of himself. She wants the best for him.
In spite of everything, she loves him. How did that change?
* * *
—
THE ODDS OF a family like this one existing at all, much less one that remained intact long enough to be discovered, seem impossible to calculate. The precise genetic pattern of schizophrenia has defied detection; its existence announces itself, but fleetingly, like flickering shadows on the wall of a cave. For more than a century, researchers have understood that one of the biggest risk factors for schizophrenia is heritability. The paradox is that schizophrenia does not appear to be passed directly from parent to child. Psychiatrists, neurobiologists, and geneticists all believed that a code for the condition had to be there somewhere, but have never been able to locate it. Then came the Galvins, who, by virtue of the sheer number of cases, offered a greater degree of insight into the illness’s genetic process than anyone imagined possible. Certainly no researcher had ever encountered six brothers in one family—full-blooded siblings, with the same two parents in common, the same shared genetic line.
Starting in the 1980s, the Galvin family became the subject of study by researchers on the hunt for a key to understanding schizophrenia. Their genetic material has been analyzed by the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, the National Institute of Mental Health, and more than one major pharmaceutical company. As with all such test subjects, their participation was always confidential. But now, after nearly four decades of research, the Galvin family’s contribution finally can be seen clearly. Samples of their genetic material have formed the cornerstone of research that has helped unlock our understanding of the disease. By analyzing this family’s DNA and comparing it with genetic samples from the general population, researchers are on the cusp of making significant advances in treatment, prediction, and even prevention of schizophrenia.
Until recently, the Galvins were completely unaware of how they might be helping others—oblivious to how their situation had, among some researchers, created such a feeling of promise. But what science has learned from them is only one small portion of their story. That story begins with their parents, Mimi and Don, and a life together that took flight with limitless hope and confidence, only to curdle and collapse in tragedy, confusion, and despair.
But the story of the children—of Lindsay, her sister, and her ten brothers—was always about something different. If their childhood was a funhouse-mirror reflection of the American dream, their story is about what comes after that image is shattered.
That story is about children, now grown, investigating the mysteries of their own childhood—reconstituting the fragments of their parents’ dream, and shaping it into something new.
It is about rediscovering the humanity in their own brothers, people who most of the world had decided were all but worthless.
It is about, even after the worst has happened in virtually every imaginable way, finding a new way to understand what it means to be a family.
THE GALVIN FAMILY
PARENTS
“DON”
DONALD WILLIAM GALVIN
born in Queens, New York, on January 16, 1924
died on January 7, 2003
“MIMI”
MARGARET KENYON BLAYNEY GALVIN
born in Houston, Texas, on November 14, 1924
died on July 17, 2017
CHILDREN
DONALD KENYON GALVIN
born in Queens, New York, on July 21, 1945
married Jean (divorced)
JAMES GREGORY GALVIN
born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 21, 1947
married Kathy (divorced), one child
died on March 2, 2001
JOHN CLARK GALVIN
born in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 2, 1949
married Nancy, two children
BRIAN WILLIAM GALVIN
born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on August 26, 1951
died on September 7, 1973
“MICHAEL”
ROBERT MICHAEL GALVIN
born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on June 6, 1953
married Adele (divorced), two children
married Becky
RICHARD CLARK GALVIN
born in West Point, New York, on November 15, 1954
married Kathy (divorced), one child
married Renée
JOSEPH BERNARD GALVIN
born in Novato, California, on August 22, 1956
died on December 7, 2009
MARK ANDREW GALVIN
born in Novato, California, on August 20, 1957
married Joanne (divorced)
married Lisa, three children
MATTHEW ALLEN GALVIN