Books Set in the United States: Idaho

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

Books Set in the United States: Utah

Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer (2004)


Read: March 19, 2011

Books Set in the United States: Utah

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff (2008)

The 19th Wife is the story of two women in polygamous marriages ~ one during the time of Brigham Young, and one in present day. Both are the 19th wives of polygamous husbands. The story, which is historical fiction, seamlessly goes between the lives of the two women using a variety of literary techniques. Ann Eliza, a wife of Brigham Young, is told through her own voice, through memoirs of others, depositions, letters and newspaper articles. BeckyLyn Scott’s story is told through the eyes of her son, Jordan. BeckyLyn belongs to a closed fundamentalist separatist sect known as the Firsts, an offshoot of Mormonism.

Ann Eliza Young is a real historical figure. She was more than 40 years his junior. She is generally considered to have been Brigham Young’s 19th wife, although as the author describes, Mormon math likely brings her number in his series of marriages to have been much higher.

BeckyLyn is totally fictional. She, too, was decades younger than her husband. The story begins when BeckyLyn is arrested, ostensibly for the murder of her husband. Although a few years earlier she had dropped off her son in the middle of the night with instructions to live on his own, when Jordan finds out his mother is incarcerated, he visits her. He is convinced that she did not shoot her husband and seeks clear her name.

Ann Eliza’s mother converted to Mormonism by Joseph Smith before the original Mormon exodus from New York and ultimately settling in Utah. For many years, Ann Eliza’s father was married only to her mother, however, after years of living within the Mormon community, they are pressured into entering into a “celestial” marriage. Joseph Smith has informed the community that he heard the word of the LORD and that the only way into heaven is to allow a husband to have many wives. The multiple marriages cut deeply with the women in the marriages.

Ann Eliza sees what having multiple “sister wives” has done to her mother and vows not to be a part of one herself. She marries a man who turns out to be a freeloader. Brigham Young helps her get a divorce, thereby clearing any obstacles that impede upon his designs on her. When Ann Eliza’s brother, Gilbert, gets caught in financial trouble, Brigham Young promises to get him out from under his debt in return for marriage to Ann Eliza.

Ann Eliza finally stood up to her husband and became a public speaker crusading against polygamy. Through Ann Eliza, we learn of the dynamics of polygamous life in the early history of Mormonism. Though BeckyLyn, we learn of life in the present day separatists communities, where men marry increasingly younger girls, and teenage boys are discarded for being viewed as “competition” to the older men seeking the young girls.

Although the Mormons officially renounced polygamy in 1890, the practice is still present in splinter groups scattered throughout the remote areas of Utah. The author describes how such groups live and allows wives and children collect welfare from the government, which because it does not recognize multiple marriage.

In a side story, we learn that Jordan is gay, something that is a taboo subject in the closed fundamentalist community where he grew up.

I loved this book. Although it was over 500 pages, the story was very compelling.

Read: March 8, 2010