77 pages • 2 hours read
Robert KolkerHidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The House on Hidden Valley Road
The fact that the Galvins’ family home provides the title indicates its symbolic importance to the work. At the time the Galvins bought it, the house embodied the post-war American aspiration for a better life; as “one of the first in a new life of suburban homes meant to cater to Academy families who wanted a little more room” (51), it spoke to the era’s faith in economic expansion and upward mobility. In a sense, even its seclusion was typical of the mood of the time, reflecting the tendency of many Americans to look to the domestic sphere and idealized family life during the uncertainty of the Cold War: “[L]iving there, to Mimi, felt as far away from the nuclear age as could be—more timeless, more natural, more authentic” (52).
For Kolker, the house on Hidden Valley Road therefore serves as a shorthand for the American dream, and as Don and Mimi’s version of this dream sours, its significance shifts. It isn’t simply that, for many of the younger children, the house was never the refuge that it initially was for Mimi; rather, the relative isolation of the house becomes representative of the family’s experience of schizophrenia. For one, this seclusion mirrors the symptomology of the disease, which often begins with social withdrawal and escalates into a complete break with the outer world. Meanwhile, the idea of the house as “hidden” speaks to the secrecy that defined the Galvins’ relationship to the disease, as both those experiencing early symptoms of it and those around them strove to preserve a sense of outward normalcy.
Falconry
The practice of falconry, which Mimi and Don took up shortly after moving to Colorado Springs for the first time, appealed to the couple for multiple reasons. It harnessed their growing love of the outdoors, but also tapped into their desire to feel like part of a cultural elite, elevating them into the ranks of “a secretive few” that included “Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Mary Queen of Scots, and Henry VIII” (4). Perhaps more than anything else, however, the hobby came to represent the couple’s (and particularly Mimi’s) beliefs about family life and parenting: “[T]he method for domesticating a wild hawk or falcon was well articulated—and if followed correctly, she and Don learned, you ended up with a well-behaved, obedient, civilized bird. Mimi also applied this persistent, unyielding approach at home” (26).
However, while Mimi’s careful discipline and instruction might not have (as Michael believed) actually done her children harm, it certainly didn’t have its intended effect; the effort she put into parenting did not ultimately prevent half of her children from developing serious mental illnesses. The contrast between the Galvins’ falcons and their children illuminates the complexity of the human brain, as evidenced by the unique ways it can go astray, such as creating its own reality. Freedman called the disease “uniquely human and philosophical” (178-179).
There’s another and more positive sense in which the falconry motif is significant, however. Because of their association with flight, the birds evoke the Galvins’ hopes and dreams for their future—perhaps most obviously, Don’s ambitions in the Air Force, which may have adopted the falcon as its mascot in part on his suggestion. Although many of the family's hopes ultimately came to nothing, it’s worth noting that at least two of the Galvin children retain an interest in falconry even in the midst of their illness. In this way, the birds continue to symbolize hope by allowing Donald and Peter to transcend the limitations of their condition, if only briefly.
Stories
Hidden Valley Road is deeply interested in the blurry boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, as well as the way people use narratives (some truer than others) to make sense of their experiences. This interest in what separates truth from fiction is not surprising given the work’s subject matter; schizophrenia is as a disorder where private fantasy and delusion supplant commonly accepted reality. What’s notable, however, is that even healthy people routinely bend the truth in the stories they tell themselves, and even come to believe in their self-deceptions.
Mimi offers the most obvious example of the blurring of fiction and nonfiction. To a large extent, she relied throughout her life on stories of her family pedigree and privileged girlhood to provide herself with a sense of identity and meaning. The fact that these stories were increasingly disconnected from the life she was leading as Don’s wife and the mother of so many sick children was beside the point; Mimi sought refuge in her stories to cope with these disappointments. Kolker reveals that the very essence of these stories was a fantasy; although the events Mimi recounted were more or less true, the omission of the sexual abuse allowed Mimi to avoid confronting a deeply traumatic experience.
As a motif, stories serve more than one purpose. In some cases, people rely on them to an unhealthy extent, often because they don’t know how else to deal with their traumas. On the other hand, Kolker suggests that indulging in a certain amount of make-believe about oneself and one’s life is inevitable, and even healthy: “[W]e all have stories we tell ourselves” (305). The storytelling otherwise healthy people engage in also serves as a possible point of connection with those suffering from schizophrenia, once again demonstrating that the latter aren’t as different from the general population as we might assume.
