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Just finished this book that was a Christmas present. Tara Westover grew up in Idaho with active member parents who didn’t trust the government, didn’t go to the doctor/hospital but relied instead on herbal and home remedies (even for serious injuries), and home schooled their children. Tara is the youngest and by her account was not really home schooled. She now holds a doctorate and is estranged from her parents and some other family members. This is her memoir. I found it compelling. It’s easy to Google her and stuff relating to her family. Apparently their recollection of some things is quite different and they see themselves as fairly normal members of the church (for Idaho they might be). Her family does run a successful essential oils business.
I’m happy to discuss perspectives with anyone else who may have read this book.
I REALLY enjoyed the book. I don’t think it directly is any attack on the church (and Tara makes a point about saying that over and over in interviews), but it does show how a mentally off person can really thrive within the LDS culture. I really am amazed at where Tara has been able to do with her life.
LookingHard wrote:
I REALLY enjoyed the book. I don’t think it directly is any attack on the church (and Tara makes a point about saying that over and over in interviews), but it does show how a mentally off person can really thrive within the LDS culture.I really am amazed at where Tara has been able to do with her life.
I agree, I don’t think she is anti and that’s not her point. She’d actually probably fit in pretty well here. I also did catch an interview with her. She’s clearly very intelligent to get where she’s gotten based on her beginning. I asked myself what would have happened had she stayed and not taken that leap to go to BYU or what if she gave up after struggling that first year? I bet there are a few in Idaho (and other parts of Mormondom) who we could look at and see exactly what would have happened. I think Tara’s sister, sister-in-law and a couple brothers are examples of where/how she likely would have ended up.
I do and don’t see the reason for her inactivity, and she doesn’t really talk about that in the book outright. I do wonder how she really feels about the church.
I have seen Tara in interviews. Her experience reminds me a little of the movie Captain Fantastic in that a family was homeschooled, isolated from others, and indoctrinated to a very specific view of the world by a strong/controlling father figure. In the movie the children were impressively capable in some ways but at the same time not particularly well equipped to thrive in the modern world. My information is limited because I did not read the book. It sounds like her education included lots of reading of LDS Scriptures, church history and the like. That certainly is a form of education. Maybe she could recite church history restoration events by heart but had no exposure or context for the Holocaust (she stated in an interview that she was embarrassed to not have heard of the Holocaust when she first arrived at BYU).
DarkJedi wrote:
I found it compelling. It’s easy to Google her and stuff relating to her family. Apparently their recollection of some things is quite different and they see themselves as fairly normal members of the church (for Idaho they might be).
I found the following article that gives Tara’s parent’s position:https://www.hjnews.com/preston/news/educated-should-be-read-with-grain-of-salt-says-family/article_0583f217-6fd2-51de-a891-9ca32adb589c.html Her parent’s main disputations (expressed through a lawyer) are with Tara’s description of her father as a fundamentalist and possibly having schizophrenia and her mother as having lost some motor skills after a brain injury. The parents feel that fundamentalist implies belief in polygamy. Tara never said her father was interested in polygamy so it becomes a problem of how you define “fundamentalist”. The second dispute of the motor skills also seems rather semantic considering the claims that are made in the book. The lawyer brings up the schizophrenia claim but then never says anything to refute it.
Another part of the story is that when she was in graduate school she confronted her parents about being physically and psychologically abused by an older brother. Her parents gaslighted her by telling her that she was insane, her memories were unreliable, or that she was under the influence of Satan. She says that this experience of invalidating her lived experiences was a major motivation for her to write the book.
I observe that accusations of abuse by a male relative often result in this sort of schism within families with a number of family members attacking, demonizing, and refusing to believe the accuser/victim and openly siding with the accused perpetrator. The lawyer says about the parents actions in that circumstance, “They thought they were dealing with situation the best they could with what they knew.”
DarkJedi wrote:
… stuff deleted …I do and don’t see the reason for her inactivity, and she doesn’t really talk about that in the book outright. I do wonder how she really feels about the church.
I get the impression she is trying to stay away from really getting into that as it is not the point of her book, nor does she want to alienate those (maybe even some young woman in Idaho in similar-ish circumstances). I think this is wise from an author attempting to make a buck and wise for someone that is trying to make some change in the world.
But it would be nice to talk to her more 1×1 where she would be comfortable that her confidences would not be betrayed and she could be honest. But I also in another way don’t care, but I do care that she find her own path of happiness.
I have not seen Captain Fantastic, Roy, but that is indeed one of Tara’s main points. Her own experiences demonstrate how unprepared she was for the real world, even in personal interactions with roommates, classmates, and professors. I think you summed up the family situation from their point of view pretty well, Roy. The book does make a pretty strong case for the father having an untreated mental illness (I don’t recall that she specifies schizophrenia). I’m not a psychologist but I do have some experience with those who have mental illnesses and from what she describes in the book I agree with her.
She also doesn’t ever call them fundamentalists I think partly because of the connotation that brings with it and partly because the book isn’t about the church. She only incidentally mentions the church, usually because some event was tied to the church (like her singing). Polygamy is not ever mentioned and it doesn’t sound like they are fundamentalist from that perspective. They are definitely of the prepper or “off the grid” mindset which some more fundamentalist factions also believe. An example from the book would be fuel storage with the idea that when the rapture or whatever comes they’ll have fuel and their neighbors won’t so they’ll be able to do things to survive that their neighbors can’t. A lot of more mainstream members in 2020 consider that to be a bit kooky, but in 1985 is was probably a little less kooky – but there are also members (even in my own ward) who wouldn’t consider it at all odd and think it’s the rest of us who are off base. I think the Westovers fall into the latter group.
Scriptures were definitely part of her education, but not necessarily all scripture and I think I recall her specifically saying they did not use the OT at all. She was taught to read, but lacked even basic math skills. Early church history and Founding Fathers was the extent of her historical knowledge, and that mostly came from her father’s regular and repetitive lectures.
Quote:Another part of the story is that when she was in graduate school she confronted her parents about being physically and psychologically abused by an older brother. Her parents gaslighted her by telling her that she was insane, her memories were unreliable, or that she was under the influence of Satan. She says that this experience of invalidating her lived experiences was a major motivation for her to write the book.
I observe that accusations of abuse by a male relative often result in this sort of schism within families with a number of family members attacking, demonizing, and refusing to believe the accuser/victim and openly siding with the accused perpetrator. The lawyer says about the parents actions in that circumstance, “They thought they were dealing with situation the best they could with what they knew.”
This is a memoir, not a novel, but confronting the parents about the abuse at the hands of her brother (vividly and graphically described earlier in the book) is the climax and what led to the family rift. There’s more to it than just her confronting them (she wasn’t the only one abused by him) and it’s really much more about the reaction of the parents. In the book, the parents (and apparently some siblings) tell people Tara is possessed and/or under the influence of Satan and/or apostate because of the accusations which they know at least some of which actually happened. It’s a two way street, and the book adequately expresses Tara’s anguish but the websites do not express her family’s anguish (if any). She makes the point in the end of the book that there is a schism in the family, it’s her and 3 of her brothers opposed to the other 2 brothers and sister – and some of that has to do with level of education (hence the title).
LookingHard wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
… stuff deleted …I do and don’t see the reason for her inactivity, and she doesn’t really talk about that in the book outright. I do wonder how she really feels about the church.
I get the impression she is trying to stay away from really getting into that as it is not the point of her book, nor does she want to alienate those (maybe even some young woman in Idaho in similar-ish circumstances). I think this is wise from an author attempting to make a buck and wise for someone that is trying to make some change in the world.
But it would be nice to talk to her more 1×1 where she would be comfortable that her confidences would not be betrayed and she could be honest. But I also in another way don’t care, but I do care that she find her own path of happiness.
I agree. Again, the book isn’t about the church, it’s about her experiences and her family who happen to be members of the church. I do think she is trying to walk that fine line between saying what she really thinks about the church and trying not to alienate believers, some of who don’t find her parents to be anything but normal. It would be nice to chat with her one on one, but she may be leery about being completely open because look where that got her with her family – she thought she was in a good position to confront a major issue in her life and that her parents (and some siblings) would be supportive and it turned out for her that her footing was not at all solid and she’s now alienated from many of them. With that kind of trauma she may not be willing to open up to anyone about it.
I honestly don’t care either, it’s her life and her path. Just like everyone else, I hope she finds her way.
I finally got around to reading this book for the library book club. 1. It’s Bi-Polar as the mental disorder. I think it’s “Plausible” that her father struggled with that. Some of the lows and the highs associated with Bi-Polar are documented in the memoir.
2. I found what Drew Mecham (Tara’s now-friend and former partner and stabilizing character) wrote as a response on the reviews for the Amazon book version.
Quote:“In the interest of full disclosure, I’m the Drew from this book, and although Tara and I are no longer together I’ve met all of the key figures in this book on many occasions. Although I don’t have as intimate a knowledge of growing up in the Westover family as a sibling would, I observed first hand everything Tara describes in the third part of the book and heard many stories about earlier events, not just from Tara, but from siblings, cousins, and her parents themselves. I find the claims of factual inaccuracy that have come up among these reviews to be strange for two reasons. First, in a post-James Frey (“A Million Little Pieces”) world, publishers are incredibly careful with memoirs and “Educated” was extensively fact checked before publication. Second, no one claiming factual inaccuracy can do so with any precision. While every Westover sibling, as well as their neighbors and friends, will have different perspectives and different memories, it is very difficult to dispute the core facts of this book. “Educated” is about abuse, and the way in which both abusers and their enablers distort reality for the victims. It’s about the importance of gaining your own understanding of the world so you’re not dependent on the narratives imposed on you by others. I’ve heard Tara’s parents attack schools and universities, doctors and modern medicine, but more importantly, I’ve seen her parents work tirelessly to create a world where Shawn’s abuse was minimized or denied outright. I’ve seen them try to create a world where Tara was insane or possessed in order to protect a violent and unstable brother. I was with her in Cambridge when Shawn was calling with death threats, then saw her mother completely trivialize the experience. For Tara’s parents, allegiance to the family is paramount, and allegiance to the family requires you to accept her father’s view of the world, where violence is acceptable and asking for change is a crime.”
3. I think it was a book written to feel everything that was left numb at the time in memory. These are the memories that surfaced first to be felt, analyzed, and gain “an education” about. I do feel that there were more normal aspects of living that the writer did do that didn’t register at the time. I do believe it is likely that her mother was a stronger, more opinionated person then Tara experienced and that she might have been a more competent mother then she was portrayed. For what it’s worth, I think that Tara feels things deeply without words – and then if/when the words come – they are chosen for their trajectory and precision to describe those feelings with deadly accuracy that flourishes itself into the air like magical prose.
This book isn’t about her relationship to church or to God even. She was given a bunch of “rules” filtered through her father and her church experience that weren’t her internal “rules” bubbling up from herself. She didn’t get to “be herself” – she was a reflection of her father’s aspirations, her mother’s reflections, what her siblings needed her to be/saw her as. She got to be an amazing actress. Thanks for adding to this conversation, Amy. I especially liked Drew’s perspective as someone that was witness to some of what happened as a relative outsider. He confirms the abuse and, more especially, the gaslighting when Tara tried to bring up the abuse.
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