Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover, kept me spellbound from beginning to end. The story begins at Buck’s Peak in Idaho’s hill country in 1979 when Tara is seven years old.
Tara’s family is Mormon, but perhaps more fundamentalist than what is more commonly recognized. Her father is the absolute ruler of the family and distrusts government, schools, hospitals, and traditional doctors. Her mother is a midwife and an herbalist. Four of Tara’s six siblings have no birth certificates, no medical records, nor have ever seen a doctor or nurse. The children are home schooled, though not in any organized or supervised way.
Tara’s father runs a scrapyard and as the children are physically capable, they work with him. It can be dangerous work and many times serious injuries occur to Tara and her brothers.
One of Tara’s older brothers, a brother with whom she has a good relationship, becomes violent, even sadistic. When she tries to tell her family they don’t believe her and refuse to intervene. Another older brother loves music and dreams of a real education. He applies for and manages to get into college, and encourages Tara to do the same, though their father claims it is a sin to “whore after man’s knowledge.”
Tara is 16 when she takes her college entrance exam, the first examination she has ever taken. As a freshman in college, she sits in her first classroom at the age of 17. It’s a new and strange experience, sitting in a room full of people. She lives in a dorm and feels like a misfit with her two sophisticated roommates.
Tara continues her education by winning scholarships and awards, eventually studying abroad. The chasm widens between Tara and her family, a situation that saddens her, but that grows more distant with each passing year.
Educated is a deeply moving memoir, a story that opened my eyes to people who live and believe very differently than what is familiar to me. I am impressed with Tara’s determination for acquiring an education, and with her remarkable scholastic accomplishments.
