BOOK REVIEW
EDUCATED: A MEMOIR
AUTHOR: TARA WESTOVER.
PUBLISHED: RANDOM HOUSE FEBRUARY 20, 2018
Reviewed by John David Kolter, MD
“E
ducated” is a compelling and
dramatic memoir by author
Tara Westover. Released in
2018, the book won both
critical acclaim and that of
the general public, making
the New York Times Best
Seller list. Westover chronologically recon-
structs her life for the reader in vivid detail, despite controversy
within her own family surrounding the facts of often extraordi-
nary events.
The life she reconstructs is one of remarkable insulation, on
Buck’s Peak in southwestern Idaho, raised by an isolationist and
conservative Mormon family with a pervasive fear and distrust of
government involvement in their lives. Westover’s story touches
in depth on themes of religion, education, female roles in society,
mental illness, family dysfunction, physical abuse and self-pres-
ervation. Westover was not educated in a traditional sense in her
youth. Not until 17 did she darken the door of a school, but at
home was taught the ways of self-sufficiency, Mormonism and
life lessons provided by her older sister and brothers. Remarkably,
however, she ultimately achieved a formal education, without the
support of her family, receiving a PhD in history from Cambridge.
The book opens with Westover’s memory of her father describ-
ing, during intense and eerie late-night family meetings, a near-
by family of “freedom fighters” under siege by the government.
Westover and her family, at the fanatical insistence of her father,
begin preparing for the onslaught of the Feds by canning food and
stockpiling supplies. They bury many of their provisions on their
land on Buck’s Peak in remarkable quantities and in rather dra-
matic fashion. Westover is jarred by the sense of fear that grips
her as a young girl. Years later, the emotion, confusion and anger
of Westover is palpable when she learns about the infamous Ruby
Ridge Siege in her formal education and understands that this is
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
what her father had described in such ominous fashion years ear-
lier. Out of this anger, we see a rare instance of Westover, as an
adult, standing up to and confronting her father for failing to share
the full perspective in her youth.
Concurrently, early in the book, we are introduced to the seeds
of mental illness at play in the family. Westover describes her fa-
ther’s bipolar depression most vividly by recalling family trips to
visit grandparents in Arizona for her dad to “get a little sun.” Her
dad would sit, almost catatonic, for weeks on end until sudden-
ly coming to and demanding an immediate return to Idaho. The
drives were often wild and aggressive events fueled by an almost
insatiable and paranoid determination by her father to return
home. From one of these drives stems a shocking story: though
caught in a severe snowstorm, predicted by and known to her fa-
ther before leaving Arizona, Westover’s father insists the family
carry on. They slip and swerve off the road in the family van. The
van eventually crashes, injuring all, but most severely Westover’s
mother, who sustains an apparent basilar skull fracture. However,
fear of government involvement takes precedence, and the family
accepts help from passing strangers only. They carry on to Idaho
where the mother locks herself in their dark basement for weeks
with described raccoon eyes and severe light sensitive headaches
that persist indefinitely through the book.
The fanaticism of Westover’s father and his apparent bipolar
cycling is clear, yet the unwavering deference to the male figure in
the family is paramount, even to the detriment and near death of
the family matriarch. Even so, this is not the last incidence of such
harrowing family drives but was certainly the most traumatic.
Westover describes other stories of danger, working in the fam-
ily scrap yard on Buck’s Peak. She recounts the severe burning of
her younger brother’s legs, multiple traumatic brain injuries sus-
tained by her older brother, and the near death, late in the book,
of her father from severe and disfiguring burns sustained from fla-
grantly dangerous work practices. Through these dramatic events,