Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America

Farley (The Unfit Heiress), a history professor at Mount St. Mary’s University, skillfully recounts the tragic tale of the Morlok quadruplets, four siblings born in 1930 who largely lived in the public spotlight and privately battled severe mental health issues. A media sensation since their birth, the sisters (later given the Genain surname pseudonym during research projects to protect their identities) were effectively raised by controlling and abusive parents to have a single identity. As the girls grew up, they did a stint touring the country as a dancing troupe, began to have hallucinations, and were all diagnosed as schizophrenic. In the 1950s, they became part of a National Institute of Mental Health study on the causes of schizophrenia, for which they underwent psychotherapy sessions and hours of doll-playing—and which, eventually, pointed to both genetic and environmental factors. Farley writes that the Morlok girls were “formed in a world gone mad” and sets their story against a backdrop of swirling cultural forces, from the sexualization of children in pop culture (most vividly illustrated by the emergence of “it-girl” Shirley Temple) to the mapping of the human genome. Though often grim, Farley’s narrative is based in deep research and makes for her nuanced analysis of the country’s shifting attitudes toward childhood and mental health. Readers will be riveted. (June)