Educated by Tara Westover (2018)

I have not read a book I could not put down in long time - I started it one evening and found I had to finish it the following day. This is not a novel, but a true story of the author growing up in a family in Idaho that did not believe in public education, medicine or the government. She worked in her father's junk yard, was abused by an older brother helped her mother with her herbal medicines, but longed to go to school and learn. She learned to read from the Bible and religios books, found ways to sneak in other types of learning, sang in the church, participated in local musical theater, and slowly with the help of an older brother and some friends found a way out. It is not exactly a spoiler to say she made it out and got a PhD from Cambridge.

One of the things that amazed me was the way she could remember the way she felt and thought as a little girl, before she was educated in the wider world. How she could get back into the mindspace where everything her father said was absolute truth. Then the courage to stand up to him and start finding her own voice, realizing she could think for herself. Never mind going to college without ever setting foot in a classroom of any kind. Just wow!

One of the themes is family and how far should family loyalty go. She even wrote her doctoral dissertation on family in American thinking  in the 19th century - from various religious perspetivs. Families are complicated.

And now she writes this, her first book. Thankfully the author wrote in journals as a child, and I believe that helped her confirm memories and get a sense of how she felt. She also states that she interviewed those siblings that were willing to be part of this exploration. In the beginning she states that for certain people she used pseudonyms. I referred back to that list more than once, and it included her parents and her other siblings.

I am cleaning out boxes of papers I and my parents have saved, and there is always the question of how much to save. These things remind me of my life at various stages and as I am writing my own life story for my son, they help validate my memories.