Educated: A Memoir: About the Author

The article reports on the author Tara Westover. He mentions her upbringing in a Mormon survivalist family, her estrangement from part of her family, and her efforts to educate herself as recounted in her book "Educated."

One common thread of J.D. Vance’s and Tara Westover’s memoirs is distrust of institutions. Yet it was institutions — the military in one case, college in the other — that saved them.

An interview with Tara Westover, author of "Educated," is presented about cultural separation and mutual misunderstanding in the U.S. Some of the issues she addressed are the experience gap in the Americans' national life, U.S. President Donald Trump as a sign of poor political hygiene, loss of empathy in the political system, the different life experience of Democrats and Republicans causing the political divide and people represented by the Democratic Party.

Exiting fundamentalist groups can create great difficulties, sometimes affecting the mental health of those who leave or attempt to leave. Four examples are discussed. Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) left the Plymouth Brethren in young adulthood and wrote his book Father and Son in 1907. Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959) left the Elim Pentecostal Church in Accrington aged 16 and wrote a fictionalised autobiography and a memoir of her early life. Rebecca Stott (b. 1964) left the Exclusive Brethren in her teenage years and wrote a biography of herself and her father In the Days of Rain (2017). Tara Westover (b. 1986) grew up in a Mormon family in rural Idaho and after a tumultuous childhood went to university and wrote an account of her early life, Educated (2018). All four have gone on to become notable writers. The experience of the process of exiting their religion was achieved at heavy cost to their psychological development.