Educated : A Memoir— Tara Westover
The best memoir I’ve ever read starts with an intense story of a woman’s escape from her survivalist family and adds nuance and complexity throughout
I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant.
Educated is a new memoir recounting the life of Tara Westover, a woman raised in a survivalist family in rural Idaho that spurned almost all education, medicine, and contact with any government entity in an attempt to prepare for what her father calls “The Days of Abomination”, an apocalyptic prophecy. Tara (I’ll call her Tara because she shares a surname with almost every major character in the book), in spite of this upbringing, eventually attends Brigham Young University, then King’s College in Cambridge, England, and even receives a visiting fellowship at Harvard. But it is not a memoir primarily about this journey in school as I had expected. And because of that, I can confidently say that it is my favorite book of 2018 so far and the best memoir I have ever read. I can’t even think of another one that comes close.
Tara Westover’s physical escape from her off-the-grid, conspiracy-theory-fueled family begins when she is accepted to BYU, a tale unto itself. But the core of the memoir, the through-line of the book, is her intellectual escape. It is a continuous and never-quite-complete process, but the transformation of Tara is dramatic and unmistakable. The above quote is the beginning of that paradigm shift, where she starts to make her own path. And it made me realize the biggest difference between Tara Westover’s family and a good family. It’s not their disregard for a formal education, the dangerous nature of their work in the junkyard, the blatant misogyny, or the constant psychological and physical abuse by one of the family members. Obviously all of those are factors that make the Westover family not-so-great (understatement of the year), but the core problem is the lack of support for any dissent. Tara is not encouraged to find her own place in the world. Her place is already prescribed, every facet of it.
While Tara’s family seems vastly incomparable to most other families, I was reminded often of this same characteristic that makes my family good. My family is the opposite of the Westovers in many ways. They prize formal education, for one. I have never once heard my dad spout a conspiracy theory. But beyond that, I was always encouraged to think for myself. Yes, they instilled in me their Christian values and beliefs, and I held onto those until they became mine. But that’s the thing: they became mine. The Westover family did not allow facts and truth into their lives if they countered the family’s beliefs. My parents actively encouraged rational thought and research because they believed it would strengthen my faith, not destruct it. As Tara writes, and I quoted above, I had also been sculpted by a tradition given to me by my parents, and I was either willfully or accidentally ignorant. But then I wasn’t, and I accepted it as my own. The Westovers did not want Tara to have that opportunity because somewhere deep down they knew she would reject that tradition. But she wrested that opportunity for herself.
So far I have focused on the negative of the Westover family, and there is more than enough of that. However, Tara embraces the complexity of her family situation throughout her narrative. As soon as I told my wife how Tara’s dad must be the most terrible father on the planet, it became obvious through her memoir that the same man (despite his numerous flaws) loved her deeply. It was his deeply held religious belief (and possibly a psychological disorder) that caused his love to manifest itself in a way that was hurtful to his entire family. Even her brother, who physically assaults her multiple times throughout the book, has moments of love for Tara and recognition of his own flaws. He does not voice that recognition, however, because to put words to that fault would be to lose some measure of power. The nuance of her story is what make Educated so special. Through her more dramatic family story we can understand our loved ones a little better, and we are reminded that no person is just one thing.
We are “sculpted by a tradition given to us by others”, but we are not only the sculpture of our parents. We are molded by friends, by teachers, and ultimately by God. Sometimes it is difficult to discern who is doing the molding at any one moment, but maybe that is the purpose of an education: to become more aware of who and what is shaping your life. As for me, I hope that my life becomes more and more shaped by my God and Him alone. And my education has been instrumental in chasing that hope.
