Educated

by Tara Westover

We know the word MORMONISM ( Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints ,  founded by Joseph Smith in 1805)  but little did we know about the guidelines of life in this community.

Tara Westover’s book is a memoir, an evocation of her childhood in the midst of one diehard mormon family in Idaho. It tells us how education can change the course of a life.

She is the youngest of seven children in a family leading a survivalist lifestyle. Her parents, particularly her father, are very rigid, suspicious  of anything modern : books, doctors, hospitals, public schools, the federal government…

Tara has no birth certificate until aged 9 !

They live at the foot of a mountain « Buck’s peak » , a bleak place, quite isolated from the rest of society.

The children are home schooling ( but few books at home !) and working hard in the father’s dangerous  junkyard.

Gene, the father, is ruling over his family in a brutal and fanatical way.

Faye, the mother, is a midwife and herbalist, making a business in alternative healing.

When Tara’s  best loved brother Tyler leaves  home for good to go to school, Tara decides to give her life a new turn : she goes to school for the first time, aged 15. 

« The seed of curiosity had been planted ; it needed nothing more than time and boredom to grow. » She starts reading «  The Book of Mormons ». This is her education !

 She is encouraged by Tyler : «  It’s time to go Tara. There is a world out there Tara » he said. « And , it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear ».

In the meantime, Tara keeps being physically and psychologically abused by her brother Shawn in a way that was hard to believe. Shaws brutality is  such that it makes her impervious to pain .  She becomes used to it. But the psychological trauma is huge.

Tara eventually renounces her father’s world, passes the ACT exam in order to attend Brigham Young University.

Needless to say it is hard for her to adjust to school life and to blend in with other students !

Luckily, a professor, Dr Kerry spots the potential in Tara and makes her apply to a study abroad program for students  in Cambrige UK . And she embarks on this program.

Her meeting there with Prof. Steinberg, a former vice-master of a Cambridge college, is a deciding factor in Tara’s life : 

« … I had to admit that I had never been to school. »  Tara said. « How marvellous » he said, smiling, «  It is as if I ‘ve stepped into  Shaw’s Pygmalion.   The most powerful determinant of who you are is inside you. Pygmalion was just a cockney girl in a nice dress, until she believed in herself. »

And under the guidance of Prof. Steinberg,  Tara starts  to believe in herself  against all odds 

She gets  a Master’s degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. Then,   becomes a visiting  fellow at Harvard University and gets a PHD in Intellectual History in 2014 at Cambridge.

She confesses : «  I sneaked into the place as an imposter. I now entered through the front door. »

This is an extraordinary story of human resilience and determination.

We all loved the book although  found it hard to believe the cruelty and the domestic violence existing in this family.

Anne Van Calster

November 2019