Educated

Educated can mean two things. On a base level it’s about going through school and getting some grades. On a deeper level it’s the journey we take from ignorance to enlightenment, decoding lies and falsehoods, discovering  truth and freedom.

Tara Westover in many respects was denied both forms of education. She was brought up in Bucks Peak, Idaho, a home on the hillside backdropped by a looming mountain. Her father, a Survivalist, believed the end was coming, and prepared his family for this every day. He was also mistrustful of the Government, believing they were Satan’s soldiers, responsible for altering minds and bodies with their contaminated health care and education. A local stand-off did not help matters either. When Randy Weaver came face to face with the FBI in 1992, the botched handling would fuel Survivalism for years to come. With Weaver’s wife shot and some of the older children killed in a gun battle, government conspiracists had a story they could dine on ‘til Judgement. The mismanagement of that operation exacerbated Tara Westover’s miseducation. Her father would always turn to her and say: you can’t trust the State, look what they did to poor Miss Weaver. The fact Randy was part of the Aryan Nation was neglected. The fact the Agency had tried to broker a peace deal ignored. Gene Westover was a signed and sealed member of Confirmation Bias: he didn’t deliberately hide from the facts; he just sought the information that supported his belief. 

Randy Weaver supporters. .Photo. Jeff T Green/AP

So, Tara grew up without state education or healthcare. For a long time the state didn’t even know she existed. The Westovers never registered her birth. Documentation was a form of state control. What business of it was theirs who she was? The family were well and truly off-the-grid. Gene made money at the local junkyard, but most lucrative was his wife’s job as midwife. The occupation is fascinatingly chronicled in the book where we see Faye learn on the job. Faye would go around with her friend to homes of other Survivalists and people who simply couldn’t afford medical bills; there they would perform the births with rudimentary equipment and homeopathic oils. Even though she had some aptitude for it, Faye never really had the stomach for the job, but her husband persisted, insisting she was doing God’s work. Of course children died in the process, however, this was just part of God’s plan.

For Tara she was put to work early. Her stories on her days at the junkyard are the stuff of horror. Just a little girl she is thrown from a loader onto a trailer. Her father is responsible. He was the one who told her to get in to settle the iron. The gash on her leg is vast. An open wound. A reminder that her father is playing fast and loose with her life. If she died, well that would be tragic, but it would just be part of God’s plan. It’s at this point that Tara begins to think about school. She says she wants to go. 

It takes her years to get there.

Education can seem like a mountain. How great is this front cover?

Tara’s journey to education is so long because of her father’s indoctrination. He has schooled her in ignorance, blackboarded her in the Old Testament, taught her to work in silence and not ask questions. The thing is Gene isn’t a teacher. He just thinks he’s one. To all extents and purposes, he’s the Emperor’s New Clothes. With Y2K on the horizon he tells his family to prepare for the worst. The world is heading for a blue screen shutdown. System Restore won’t work here. Of course when 2000 rolls round, nothing happens. Westover describes her reaction, 

He seemed smaller to me than he had that morning. The disappointment in his features were so childlike, for a moment I wondered how God could deny him this.

Gene is exposed yet Tara isn’t yet strong enough to point and laugh; he is after all her father, she loves him.

It is this love that ultimately imprisons Tara. Every time she thinks of getting away, the loyalty for her family pulls her back. She operates in a kind of paradox where she knows her families beliefs are crazy yet believes in them all the same. It’s only when she sees a life beyond her home through acting that she realises that her world isn’t normal; it’s strange, disturbing and harmful. Her older brother, Tyler, tries to get her into education. Urging like he did to leave the coop and fly free. But it’s tough. Her father is on hand to preach damnation at her, and her brother, Shawn, there to grab her by the throat when she strays. The psychological and physical abuse she is subjected to is written in a matter-of-fact way, cinema verité style, without heavy strings and melodrama. For as bad as this male behaviour is, there is some good in these men. Gene has been damaged by his father, Shawn by his. Their family tree is cankered - homeopathy can't cure it.

In time Tara seeks true education. Although she is undoubtedly courageous, I think something is owed to Tyler, her older brother.  By him acquiring knowledge, he inspires his sister to do the same. You can’t want something if you don’t know it exists. It’s Tyler playing records and leaving books around that tempts Tara to take from the Tree. Her subsequent banishment lays the groundwork for a truly incredible rise. By the end you will rapture on Tara Westover’s transformation. Because despite what her family would say, she is no fallen angel; instead a person reborn, an educated Second Coming if you will. 

A remarkable coming of age story then about surviving Survivalists. Jon Ronson meets Charles Dickens. Meet Educated: your new favourite book.

Educated is available now.