Girls and Their Monsters

The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America

By: Audrey Clare Farley

Narrated by: Kate Udall

For readers of Hidden Valley Road and Patient H.M., an “intimate and compassionate portrait” (Grace M. Cho) of the Genain quadruplets, the harrowing violence they experienced, and its psychological and political consequences.​

In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets in Lansing, Michigan, had all been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe their ears. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission and, thus, a chance to bring international fame to their fledgling institution.

The case of the pseudonymous Genain quadruplets, they soon found, was hardly so straightforward. Contrary to fawning media portrayals of a picture-perfect Christian family, the sisters had endured the stuff of nightmares. Behind closed doors, their parents had taken shocking measures to preserve their innocence while sowing fears of sex and the outside world. In public, the quadruplets were treated as communal property, as townsfolk and members of the press had long ago projected their own paranoid fantasies about the rapidly diversifying American landscape onto the fair-skinned, ribbon-wearing quartet who danced and sang about Christopher Columbus. Even as the sisters’ erratic behaviors became impossible to ignore and the NIMH whisked the women off for study, their sterling image did not falter.

Girls and Their Monsters chronicles the extraordinary lives of the quadruplets and the lead psychologist who studied them, asking questions that speak directly to our times: How do delusions come to take root, both in individuals and in nations? Why does society profess to be “saving the children” when it readily exploits them? What are the authoritarian ends of innocence myths? And how do people, particularly those with serious mental illness, go on after enduring the unspeakable? Can the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood help the deeply wounded heal?

©2023 Audrey Clare Farley (P)2023 Grand Central Publishing

Critic reviews

“In Girls and Their Monsters, Audrey Clare Farley embraces the complexity of mental health and human relationships. In her hands, the story of the Genain quadruplets is at once disturbing and heartening. It’s a tale of despair and resilience, about the ways we hurt each other and lift each other up.”—Josh Levin, award-winning author of The Queen

"Girls and Their Monsters is both an intimate and compassionate portrait of girls growing up under the constant gaze of media, doctors and government agencies, and a well-researched analysis of a nation in the grip of social illness. Farley shows us the interplay between American eugenics, white supremacy, and the hidden and widespread abuse of children within their own homes and communities, and how these monstrosities created the conditions for a madness that was deemed a biological disease of the individual. This book is brilliant and riveting."—Grace M. Cho, author of National Book Award Finalist, Tastes Like War

“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.”—Publishers Weekly

A writer with an agenda

I don’t like books with agenda, especially when I was expecting a book about mentally ill quadruplets. A certain amount of the history of mental health is always helpful, for those who aren’t familiar with the history of psychiatry/psychology. Even when I agree with the writer’s point of view of the agenda, I don’t prefer an unbiased view. I care about racism, sexism and antisemitism and while they historically have impacted diagnoses and treatment, the quads were white children, so repeated reminders of how racist the USA was/is didn’t factor into the the girls’/women’s history. If Audrey Clare Farley wanted to write a book about the history of race and mental health, I’d be interested. Don’t bait and switch me about quadruplets in the blurb.

I enjoyed the parts about the quadruplets, though toward the later parts of the book GIRLS AND THEIR MONSTERS was low on info, high on speculation and filled with extraneous history.

Farley didn’t seem to have a full grasp on schizophrenia and its etiology. I doubt she spoke with many sufferers. Based on GIRLS AND THEIR MONSTERS, I’m not certain the diagnoses were accurate for all of the girls based on 2023 understanding of the disorder.