“Kolker’s telling of the Galvin trials is at once deeply compassionate and chilling. He gives as much voice to the schizophrenic siblings — who, one after another, had psychotic breaks, were heavily medicated with debilitating drugs, and were in and out of largely unsuccessful inpatient treatment — as he does to their relatives, many of whom suffered tremendous psychological and sexual abuse from being in their orbit. Interwoven with the harrowing familial story is the history of how the science on schizophrenia has fitfully evolved, from the eras of institutionalization and shock therapy, to the profound disagreements about the cause and origins of the illness, to the search for genetic markers for the disease. Along that path, Kolker notes, “families like the Galvins, meanwhile, continued to live at the mercy of a mental health profession still caught up in a debate that came nowhere close to helping them.”
“The turbulent lives of six brothers with schizophrenia,” April 7, 2020