Life Lessons

Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, explores how her violently unconventional fundamentalist Mormon upbringing made her appreciate the power of education.

- Erica Wagner

A WINTER MIST is rising over Midsummer Common in Cambridge, England, as the afternoon darkens; the window of Tara Westover’s little flat glows, warmly welcoming, the setting like something out of a fairytale version of academic life. And yet it’s extraordinary that Westover and I should meet in this place. The 31-year-old American earned her doctorate here a few years ago, it’s true. But she had no formal education whatsoever until the age of 17. Raised by Mormon parents who took their faith to a fundamentalist extreme, she lived an isolated existence with her family — she is the youngest of seven siblings — until her late teens in rural Idaho.

The story of how she broke away from her upbringing is told in an amazing memoir, titled Educated, acquired by its publisher for a six-figure sum within 24 hours of the manuscript being sent out.

The book has a striking directness that comes from being written in the immediate aftermath of the often shocking events it describes. What is startling is not Westover’s family’s faith, or their beliefs — she is careful to say that her account is not a critique of Mormonism — but the violence to which she grew accustomed.