This story, remarkable as it is, might be merely another entry in the subgenre of extreme American life, were it not for the uncommon perceptiveness of the person telling it. (Westover recounts accidents so hideous, and so frequent, that it’s a wonder she lived to tell her tale at all.) Mainstream medicine was mistrusted, as were schools, which meant that Westover’s determination to leave home and get a formal education-the choice that drives her book, and changed her life-amounted to a rebellion against her parents’ world. Her father, who claimed prophetic powers, owned a scrap yard, where his children labored without the benefit of protective equipment. Westover’s mother worked as a midwife and an herbal healer. The government was always about to invade the End of Days was always at hand. Westover was born sometime in September, 1986-no birth certificate was issued-on a remote mountain in Idaho, the seventh child of Mormon survivalist parents who subscribed to a paranoid patchwork of beliefs well outside the mandates of their religion. I am far from the first critic to recommend Tara Westover’s astounding memoir, “ Educated,” but if its comet tail of glowing reviews has not yet convinced you, let me see what I can do.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |