Books Update: Runs in the Family

April 3, 2020

Don and Mimi had 12 children. Six of them developed schizophrenia.Photograph via the Galvin family; Illustration by Matt Dorfman

Dear Reader,

The true story told in “Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family,” reviewed on this week’s cover, is a heart-rending one: In the years after World War II, the Galvin family of Colorado Springs, Colo., had 12 children, six of whom were eventually found to be schizophrenic. Robert Kolker, the author of 2013’s “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” tells the Galvins’ story, as well as a larger story about mental illness in America: its diagnosis and misdiagnosis, treatment and mistreatment. The book is reviewed by our newsroom colleague Sam Dolnick, the assistant managing editor who heads up audio, film, TV and other digital projects for The Times.

For those eager to get away from the real world, we’ve got some great fiction: Julian Lucas, a contributing writer for the Book Review, raves about “Hurricane Season,” by Fernanda Melchor, which was recently shortlisted for the Booker International Prize, while our science-fiction and fantasy columnist Amal El-Mohtar reviews “The City We Became,” the latest novel by her predecessor in that role, the three-time Hugo Award winner N.K. Jemisin. And the magazine writer and editor Kevin Nyugen has written a debut novel, “New Waves.”

Keep safe, stay healthy, stay reading.

And please stay in touch to let us know what you think – whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We read and ponder all of it. I even write back, albeit belatedly. You can email me at books@nytimes.com.

Pamela Paul

Editor of The New York Times Book Review

@PamelaPaulNYT

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THE BOOK REVIEW PODCAST

Parenting When the Family Is Locked Inside

The clinical psychologist Lisa Damour discusses the specific challenges of raising teenagers during the pandemic, and Dwight Garner asks Pamela Paul about putting together the Book Review.

NONFICTION

nonfiction

Good Looks Ran in the Family. So Did Schizophrenia.

In “Hidden Valley Road,” Robert Kolker unspools the story of Mimi and Don Galvin and their 12 children, six of whom developed schizophrenia.

By Sam Dolnick

nonfiction

Utility Worker No. 6691 on Life Inside a Steel Mill

Struggling to pay off her student loans, Eliese Colette Goldbach applied for a job as a steelworker. Her memoir, “Rust,” explores her “complicated love” for the mill that hired her.

By Mary Norris

nonfiction

How Hitler Transformed a Democracy Into a Tyranny

Peter Fritzsche’s “Hitler’s First Hundred Days” reveals the enormous changes Hitler was able to make in a very short period of time.

By Nicholas Stargardt

nonfiction

Wresting Insight, and Poetry, From Pain

“Pain Studies,” by Lisa Olstein, and “Constellations,” by Sinead Gleeson, plumb the authors’ experiences with suffering to creative effect.

By Melanie Thernstrom

nonfiction

Stop Telling Older Women to Step Aside

“In Our Prime,” by Susan J. Douglas, argues that boomer feminists hold the keys to a better kingdom.

By Leslie Bennetts

nonfiction

What Happened When a Times Reporter Traded Brooklyn for Dakar

Frustrated by her stressful city life, Dionne Searcey moved her family to West Africa as the region’s bureau chief. “In Pursuit of Disobedient Women” is her chronicle of what she saw and learned.

By Fiammetta Rocco

nonfiction

These Are the Faces of Muslim Women Throughout History

From seventh-century Mecca to present-day Europe, Hossein Kamaly’s “A History of Islam in 21 Women” profiles believers who made a difference.

By Rafia Zakaria

nonfiction

Three New Books Explore the Machinery of the Mind

John Kay and Mervyn King’s “Radical Uncertainty,” Stanislas Dehaene’s “How We Learn” and Anthony David’s “Into the Abyss” plumb the depths of the brain.

By Christine Kenneally

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FICTION

crime

Stashed in the Marsh, Left in the Road: Victims Pile Up in Four New Crime Novels

In Marilyn Stasio’s latest column, the body count is high and the murderers more cunning than ever.

By Marilyn Stasio

fiction

When a Sinister Enemy Attacks New York, the City Fights Back

N.K. Jemisin’s “The City We Became” is a love letter to the city and its residents, but explicitly welcomes foreignness and plurality.

By Amal El-Mohtar

fiction

A Mexican Novel Conjures a Violent World Tinged With Beauty

“Hurricane Season,” by Fernanda Melchor, imagines Mexico’s scourge of violence against women in language that is fierce, profane and marvelously inventive.

By Julian Lucas

on poetry

In Defense of Poetic Nonsense, With a Character Who Shares Your Frustration

Alice Notley’s new book-length epic, “For the Ride,” follows a figure struggling to figure out the terms of a strange new world.

By Elisa Gabbert

fiction

What if Gatsby Worked at a Tech Start-Up?

The narrator of Kevin Nguyen’s debut novel, “New Waves,” discovers his charismatic work wife was not what she seemed.

By Kaitlin Phillips

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

children’s books

No Fan of Sports, a Graphic Novelist Learns to Follow the Bouncing Ball

In “Dragon Hoops,” Gene Luen Yang intercuts the thrilling wins and crushing losses of one high school team with basketball’s own turbulent history.

By Jerry Craft

children’s books

A Civil War, Then the Long Limbo of Life as a Refugee

In Victoria Jamieson’s “When Stars Are Scattered,” a Somali boy pines for his mother and cares for his little brother with hope and humor during 15 years in a refugee camp.

By Alan Gratz