Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover (2018)
The author, Tara Westover, comes from a very dysfunctional family, whose father is a fundamentalist who distrusts the government, public schools and the medical establishment. He had built a bunker stocked with provisions, including fuel, so he will be ready when the End of Days arrives.
Tara is the youngest of seven children born into an extreme Mormon fundamentalist family. Most of the Westovers were born at home so as to avoid the hospitals. Her mother was forced into becoming a midwife, albeit unlicensed. She also cooks herbs and essential oils as home remedies to treat any and all ailments, including life-threatening burns.
Tara’s father is clearly the head of the house. What he says it the absolute law. Tara’s mother meekly defers to her husband. The father runs a junkyard and expects all his children to join in the family business. A couple of the older sons “escaped” to the outside world, but with the exception of one brother, did not pursue a formal education.
Her childhood is fraught with traumas, from life-threatening car accidents, to serious burns and an abusive older brother. How she survived her childhood is a miracle.
Tara learned to read from poring over the Book of Mormon and writings of the Mormon forefathers. After she decided she wanted to go to college, she had to study on her own to learn enough mathematics to score well on the ACT exam.
At age 17, she first finds herself at BYU in an environment entirely foreign to her. Everything she sees goes against what she learned in her family’s world. She has such limited worldly experience, that she didn’t ever realize that she was supposed to read and study her art text book. College life is all the more difficult because Tara fails to tell her professors and roommate that she never attended school. When asked about her high school, Tara evades the question. It would take years before Tara is comfortable enough in her own skin to acknowledged her upbringing.
I found this to be a riveting book.
Read: January 22, 2019
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