Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, 2018, published by Random House, available in a number of formats.Also visit the author’s website at tarawestover.com.

Hi folks! I’m finally back to the blog after five weeks off. My last post was written on May 14, three days before we departed on our big trip to France. My intentions were good about writing some posts from the road, but that never happened. I think I started one post early on and never came back to it; after that I just let it slide. When we got home I had tons of ideas I wanted to write about, but they weren’t the kind of thing that lends itself to an article. Rather, I’m working on a short Book, tentatively titled “The Intentional Traveler: An Insanely Detailed and Practical Guide” or some such. Originally I thought of it as a Kindle single and a downloadable PDF, thinking that I’d shoot for about 10,000 words. Well, I’ve written only two sections and am already well over that mark. There’s just so much about traveling, just as there is about life in general, that never gets discussed. Well, I’m your person on the spot for that. I always want to know that backstory, the details, the procedure. If you’ve ever read one of my recipes you’ll know that my notes are sometimes as long as the recipe itself. I want you to know all about how to make it!

So watch for that new offering coming soon. In the meantime, though, I’ve been doing other stuff and wanted to share this book with you. Tara Westover was interviewed on NPR back in February and I immediately put her book on hold, but I was way, way down the list and then when I finally got the notification that it was available I discovered that it wasn’t a downloadable audiobook as I’d thought but one of those pre-loaded thingies, and it was on the shelf all the way across town at our old library. So I never picked it up. But then, after we got back, for some reason I thought about it again and decided to use this month’s Audible.com credit for it. Man, is it ever compelling! I found myself sometimes just sitting and listening to it, something that I rarely do with an audiobook.

Tara grew up in Idaho as part of a “fringe” or “survivalist” or “fundamentalist” Mormon family. Her father was (and is—he’s still living) convinced that the government was out to get him, an idea that was reinforced for him by the Randy Weaver/Ruby Ridge fiasco in which two members of Weaver’s family were shot by Federal agents. It’s a pretty sorry story for all involved, and Tara’s father was convinced that the same thing could happen to his family. (The Weavers lived in northern Idaho, several hundred miles from the Westovers but still within the same state.) Funnily enough, Tara’s father never tried to live completely off the grid, and he ran a fairly successful construction and salvage operation for many years. His wife worked as a midwife and herbalist, eventually starting a company that sells her products, Butterfly Express. (I’m not providing a link to it.) If I had to pick out the parts of the book that enraged me the most, they’d all have to do with the family’s complete opposition to conventional medicine. Opportunities for injury were plentiful in the salvage business, and it’s truly amazing that everyone in that family lived to adulthood. Particularly horrific is the explosion that severely burned Tara’s father. He was never taken to a doctor, never received skin grafts, never had any kind of conventional painkillers. Instead, homeopathic remedies, herbal tinctures, and homemade salves were used to treat him. Coming in (barely) second on the outrage express is the behavior of Tara’s brother Shawn, who clearly suffered (and is still suffering, apparently) from some kind of mental illness. His treatment of Tara is truly dreadful, but when she speaks out it is she who is ostracized. Shawn never gets the help he needs. No one stands up to him. I wonder what he’s doing these days?

In spite of all this awfulness, though, the book is full of humor and optimism. Tara and two of her brothers have left the family and earned Ph.D.’s. I guess you could say that the same stubbornness and drive that kept the father on that couch, determinedly surviving his ghastly accident and gamely insisting that the pain was “from the Lord” are the same qualities that drove Tara and her brothers. The father is delusional; the three children who escaped are survivors. The ones who stayed (and who all work in the family businesses) have had to accept the idea that Tara is the one who’s delusional. Deny that and you’ll be cast out of the family, too. Tara obviously loves her parents, feels equal sorrow and horror towards Shawn, and at least somewhat understands the hold that keeps her other siblings under the thumb of her father. In particular she misses her mother. The book doesn’t read like a hatchet job at all, and Tara’s stories are supported by the journals she kept from age 10 until well into adulthood. (Her family has hired a lawyer who says that the book is full of untruths.)

So I’d advise that you read the book, or listen to it. (Tara doesn’t read the audio version, but I really like the narrator who did.) If nothing else, it’s a good reminder of the importance of kindness and generosity, the willingness to see that someone is struggling and to reach out a helping hand. I wish Tara the best! You will, too.

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