Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Don, Jim, and Joe

After repeatedly visiting the ER complaining of chest pain, Jim died of heart failure in 2001. The condition was likely caused in part by his drug regimen, although it’s unclear whether—as his family believed—he had developed neuroleptic malignant syndrome, which is a relatively rare condition causing delirium, tremors, fever, etc.

Two years later, Don died of cancer. Freedman autopsied his brain expecting to uncover signs of mental illness but found none.

Finally, in 2009, Joe died of heart failure associated with neuroleptic use. Joe had always been kind and thoughtful, and his death hit Margaret and Lindsay hard. While scattering Joe’s ashes, the family shared happy memories of their son and brother: “Mimi went further back in time […] when happiness still meant the promise of something wonderful to come” (265).

2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Frustrated with the nonspecific data from the Human Genome Project, a pharmaceutical researcher at Amgen named Stefan McDonough began wondering about the possibility of studying schizophrenia in families. He soon learned about DeLisi’s research, and Amgen took ownership of her half of the material she had collected.

With this data, McDonough and DeLisi embarked on a new study focused on families with the highest incidences of schizophrenia.