Oprah Winfrey

“Hidden Valley Road is an extraordinary scientific detective story and family saga, and it sheds light on a topic too many of us face: mental illness. Robert Kolker ushers us into the world of the Galvin family in a very intimate way. Reading their story shows us the...

Sam Dolnick, The New York Times Book Review

“Kolker carefully reconstructs the story of the household falling into bedlam as the strong, athletic brothers warred with their demons and one another in flights of violent rage, each one slipping further away … Kolker tells their story with great compassion,...

Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Drawing on untapped archives and extensive interviews with the surviving Galvins, Kolker gives us a tale like no other. As he writes in the book’s conclusion, ‘To be a member of the Galvin family is to never stop tripping on land mines of family history, buried in...

Richard J. McNally, The Wall Street Journal

“[Robert] Kolker’s riveting, compassionate “Hidden Valley Road” tells the story of a family besieged by devastating mental illness. The author is a tireless journalist whose last book, Lost Girls, took readers into the lives of five murdered Long Island sex workers....

Kate Saunders, The Times of London

“Robert Kolker tells the sensational story of the Galvins, with great compassion and an admirable lack of sensationalism…. Kolker is a fine writer and a first-class investigative journalist….This unforgettable book will surely increase people’s understanding of a...

Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic

“Mimi’s heart, her image, and the gingerbread house are among the many broken things in Robert Kolker’s new book Hidden Valley Road. Named for the street the Galvins lived on in Colorado Springs, Kolker’s book splices the history of their family with an account of the...