My thanks to many additional family members, many of whom are not quoted directly but whose perspectives contributed to the narrative: Eileen Galvin Blocker, Kevin Galvin, Levana Galvin, Melissa Galvin, Patrick Galvin, Betty Hewel, George Hewel, Ellie Johnson, Sally Johnson, Mary Kelley, Kathy Matisoff, Jack Rauch, and Kate Rauch. Thanks also to Nancy Gary (an honorary Galvin if ever there was one), and to the therapists Mary Hartnett and Louise Silvern for their insights into Margaret and Lindsay, and a host of mental-health professionals who have treated the Galvin brothers: Honie B. Crandall, Kriss Prado, Rachel Wilkenson, and, from the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, Carmen DiBiaso, Kate Cotner, Sheila Fabrizio-Pantleo, Matthew Goodwin, Julie Meecker, and Al Singleton.
Still others offered insights into specific subjects. Bob Campbell, Jeff Cheney, and Ashley Crockett provided excellent insights into life in Colorado Springs. I’m indebted to many other close family friends and neighbors: Mike Bertsch, Marie Cheney, Ann Crockett, Beck Fisher, Janice Greenhouse, Merri Shoptaugh Hogan, Tim Howard, Ellie Crockett Jeffers, Suzanne King, Ed Ladoceur, Jenna Mahoney, Catherine Skarke McGrady, Roo McKenna, Lynn Murray, Joey Shoptaugh, Carolyn Skarke Solseth, Malham Wakin, and Mark Wegleitner. For sharing his expertise on falconry, my thanks to Mike Dupuy. For their memories of Don Galvin’s falconry heydey, thanks to Jerry Craig, Merrill Eastcott, Relva Lilly, George T. Nolde Jr., Vern Seifert, Hal Webster, and, from the United States Air Force Academy archives, Mary Elizabeth Ruwell. For memories of the Federation of Rocky Mountain States and the Aspen and Santa Fe social scenes, thanks to Nick Jannakos and Robin McKinney Martin. For their unparalleled historical knowledge of the Pueblo mental hospital, thanks to Nell and Bob Mitchell. For their perspectives on Father Robert Freudenstein, thanks to Kent Schnurbusch, Lee Kaspari, Craig Hart, and, from the Catholic chancellery of Denver, Colorado, Douglas Tumminello. For their memories of Brian Galvin, thanks to his former bandmates Scott Philpot, Robert Moorman, and Joel Palmer. And for their memories of Lorelei “Noni” Smith, thanks to Robert Gates, Brandon Gates, and Claudia Shurtz.
For ten years, I’ve been very lucky to have the support of two extraordinary agents, David Gernert and Chris Parris-Lamb, who believed in this book from the start and led me to the perfect publisher, Doubleday. Thanks to Bill Thomas and Suzanne Herz, and extra gratitude to my editor, the brilliant Kris Puopolo, who, over more than a few plates of taramasalata, helped me understand everything that this book could and should be. Thanks also to Dan Meyer for editorial assistance and photo wrangling, John Fontana for the jacket design, Maria Carella for book design, Rita Madrigal for production management, Fred Chase for copy editing, Dan Novack for his legal review, and Anne Collins of Random House Canada for her extremely helpful read-through of the manuscript. And long before this book was underway, I had racked up debts to many editors who guided me in the past, including Jerry Berkowitz, Robert Blau, Dan Ferrara, Barry Harbaugh, David Hirshey, Adam Moss, Raha Naddaf, Genevieve Smith, and Cyndi Stivers.
In addition to introducing me to the Galvins, Jon Gluck counseled me at every stage of this project. Jennifer Senior helped me reason my way out of countless dead ends and storytelling snarls. They and other friends, colleagues, and loved ones were kind enough to read part or all of this book in earlier stages: Kristin Becker, Kirsten Danis, Kassie Evashevski, Josh Goldfein, Pete Holmberg, Gilbert Honigfeld, Alex Kolker, Caroline Miller, Chris Parris-Lamb, William Reid, and Frank Tipton. Still others helped with enthusiasm, moral support, life-coaching, and guest-room-crashing: Franco Baseggio, Peter Becker, Yvonne Brown, Brewster Brownville, Gabriel Feldberg, Lee Feldshon, Kirsten Fermaglitch, Tony Freitas, David Gandler, Meryl Gordon, Amy Gross, Linda Hervieux, Michael Kelleher, Elaine Kleinbart, Mark Levine, Kevin McCormick, Doug McMullen, Benedict Morelli, Kenneth Mueller, Emily Nussbaum, Saul Raw, Nancy Rome, Phil Serafino, Abigail Snyder, Rebecca Sokolovsky, Clive Thompson, John Trombly, and Shari Zisman. Two researchers, Samia Bouzid and Joshua Ben Rosen, provided great help with selected subjects, and the wonderful Julie Tate performed essential fact-checking.
My mother, Judy Kolker, was my first real reader, the one who before anyone else told me that she could hear my voice when she read my writing. She also spent twenty-five years as a psychiatric counselor at our local hospital in Columbia, Maryland. While reporting this book, I had already started talking about it with her, and I had looked forward to sharing the manuscript with her (and parsing her very careful proofreading). On May 23, 2018—not quite a year after the Galvins lost their matriarch, Mimi—she died at the age of seventy-nine. Her loss has been a blow for our entire family. This book is dedicated to her and to my father, Jon, who, during such a difficult time, has been an incredible model of strength and sensitivity and generosity and grace. I could not have asked for better parents. Much love and gratitude also to my brother, Alex Kolker, and my sister, Fritzi Hallock, both also great role models, and to my entire family, including the Kolkers and Hallocks of Maryland and Iowa and the Danises of Massachusetts, Georgia, and North Carolina.
And finally, to Audrey, whose own writing already shines so brightly, and to Nate, whose advice on structuring the book (and living my life) has spared me a lot of time and heartache. And to my wife, Kirsten, who is so very precious to me—thank you for your love and beauty and inspiration. Everything I write is for you.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Hidden Valley Road is a work of nonfiction drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews with every living member of the Galvin family (including Mimi Galvin, before her death in 2017), as well as dozens of friends, neighbors, teachers, therapists, caregivers, colleagues, relatives, and researchers. No scenes have been invented. All dialogue was either witnessed and recorded by the author or based on published accounts or the recollections of sources who were present at the time.
Additional resources were used to assemble the family narrative—including, most notably, extensive interviews with the schizophrenia researchers Lynn DeLisi, Robert Freedman, and Stefan McDonough; all available medical records for the Galvin brothers and Don Galvin; Don’s military service records from the Navy and Air Force; personal correspondence written by Mimi and Don; a series of brief recorded interviews with Mimi, conducted by her daughter Margaret in 2003 and 2008; and several entries from Margaret’s personal diaries and autobiographical essays. The text itself makes it clear when any of these sources are being utilized.
For all material requiring further citation—including all passages and chapters about the science of schizophrenia, genetics, and psychopharmacology—notes are provided below.
NOTES
Epigraph: Charles McGrath, “Attention, Please: Anne Tyler Has Something to Say,” New York Times, July 5, 2018.
CHAPTER 1
Marshall Field, Oscar Wilde, and Henry Ward Beecher: Sprague, Newport in the Rockies.
Don got his hands on a copy: Husam al-Dawlah Timur Mirza, The Baz-nama-yi Nasiri: A Persian Treatise on Falconry, trans. Douglas C. Phillott (London: B. Quaritch, 1908).