#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY • The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. "Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness." —Oprah Winfrey Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

August, Rylee, Cora & Jennie have organized a “Spook Tour” with their classmates on the most haunted, demon-infested stretch of road in America to fund attending the concert of their dreams. But when their visit turns deadly, these four friends race to rescue the missing students... before the town tears them limb from limb. Now they must slay the evils roaming Proctor Valley Road... along with the monsters lurking in the hearts of 1970s America.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Great Valley Road of Virginia chronicles the story of one of America's oldest, most historic, and most geographically significant roads. Emphasized throughout the chapters is a concern for landscape character and the connection of the land to the people who traveled the road and to permanent residents, who depended upon it for their livelihoods. Also included are chapters about the towns supported by the road as well as the relationship of physical geography (the lay of the land) to the engineering of the road. More than one hundred maps, photographs, engravings, and line drawings enhance the book's value to scholars and general readers alike. Published in association with the Center for American Places

Centuries ago, Williamson Valley Road began as a game trail for native inhabitants. In the 1400s, ancestors of the Yavapai and Hualapai hunted along ancient footpaths. Later explorers widened these paths for horses. The 1800s brought military wagons transporting supplies between the Rawlins, Hualapai/Tollgate, and Fort Whipple camps while traders and settlers followed in stagecoaches. The fertile lands of Mint Valley, Williamson Valley, and Walnut Creek were ideal for raising stock and produce. Farmers sailed from Europe and up the Colorado River before traversing the Hardyville Toll Road. Ranchers imported the fittest stock and exported the finest meat with the expertise of Mexican ranch hands. Camp Wood timbermen met the demand for lumber. Eastern store owners set up shop as railroaders laid far-reaching plans but short-reaching rails. Residents in the early 1900s arrived at rodeos, camp meetings, concerts, and dances in their Model Ts using this road. Present-day suburbanites, schoolchildren, and contractors commute on Williamson Valley Road, which was designated as a Scenic and Historic Route in 2010.

A story of a boy whose first consciousness of childhood was not about love and family, but about abusive authority at home, school, and neighborhood bullies, all dominated by a huge granite Catholic church and school run by abusive barely educated nuns. His parents were good people who lived through the Great Depression, who believed their main duty was housing, feeding, and educating. The unknown poet inside him never had a chance of liberation; for when day-dreaming and glancing out the window at birds and nature the nun would smack him on the head with her hand or a wooden ruler, declaring that "idleness is the Devil's workshop," telling his mother he was the dumbest kid she ever taught, with the humiliation of spending two years in her fourth grade class. The nearby forest and streams offered the only refuge, their mysterious environments giving the young boy his first immersion into nature. But Green Valley Road also produced sport heroes, one of whom taught him to build his body and how to fist-fight the bullies in the rough neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.