Tara Westover - Author of "Educated: A Memoir" Pt. 1 - Mormon Stories Ep. 881

Published 2018-03-16
We are excited to release our interview with Tara Westover, author of the New York Times bestseller “Educated.”

“[A] searing debut memoir… Westover recounts her upbringing with six siblings on an Idaho farm dominated by her father…who tried to live off the grid, kept four children (including the author) out of school…and stockpiled supplies and guns for the end-time…When she finally escaped the toxic atmosphere of dogma, suspicion, and patriarchy to attend college and then grad school at Cambridge, her identity crisis precipitated a heartbreaking rupture. Westover’s vivid prose makes this saga of the pressures of conformity and self-assertion that warp a family seem both terrifying and ordinary.”

All Comments (21)
  • @droundyCubby
    Reading the book and hearing her talk both. I do not think she realizes yet the extent of the abuse and manipulation her brother "Shawn" used and uses on her. Same with the family. She returns home numerous times hoping for a change. She hasn't let go. Red flags all over the place. Having said that, I am so impressed with what she has done. Tara, if you read this, I am cheering you on.
  • @hannahleon4192
    I can totally relate to her when she wasn’t friends with other kids at church. I always felt weird and different, my parents were a bit too strict and radical. So many rules
  • Hi, I have not watched this video but have read Tara Westover's Memoir 'Educated. ' It is an incredible account of her struggle to free herself and become educated. I am commenting here because I am hoping that the Tara will read this post. I want to say thank you!!! For your honest and incredible memoir. I was raised in the north of England in poverty in an Irish Catholic family with a father who was intolerant and bipolar. So I saw so many parallels with Tara's experience of growing up and my own. Your memoir gave me many personal insights. - I spent a lot of time as a small child working on a building sight stacking bricks. The most important aspect if the book was the account of a person freeing oneself for the 'normalization' of a violent up bringing and moving into the light of being educated. Thank you!
  • @azukib2230
    Near the beginning, you could've edited in the announcements after the interview is over instead of having the guest wait... A lot of podcasts do that, just more respectful to the guest's time.
  • @blisham9580
    I had an older brother with the same kind of duality as Shawn. He was a major source of both confusion and self esteem in the toilet along with the head. I much admire Tara's ability to rise above the childhood that life dealt her. I was never able to find the strength to do it.
  • @tlotus3032
    Well done Tara! You're lovely and powerful!
  • @VictrixIcis
    I wish the interviewer was better prepared for such an intelligent and fascinating guest
  • @droundyCubby
    Wonderful interview. Great book, I could not put it down. You, Tara, say your parents were typical parents, and very mainstream referring to your upbringing especially your religious upbringing. Even for conservative Idaho they were very unusually conservative. (I am an Idaho native and much older than you) I would hope that the listener and the readers would not get the impression that your family was a typical family in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Mormon). The students she met in BYU are more mainstream. Her upbringing was soooo far from mainstream as to be disturbing. They do not tend to go around all day reading the scriptures, though they do set aside time each day to read, often ten minutes to half an hour. They do not wear extremely modest clothes, though they tend towards more moderate clothes, the man does NOT rule the household, Usually the women actually do, and certainly the weird revelations were the product of a deranged or bipolar mind. It is no wonder that she found herself not accepted in the group, she did not fit. Child abuse was endemic to her family, but for the normal population, it is no more common than in other families. Hers was horrendous and shaped her life. I am proud of you, Tara, for breaking free of your family and time tends to heal all wounds.
  • @gerry4281
    One of best interviews I've seen that letTara tell about her childhood. Sounds like both parents had some form of mental illness.
  • minute 23:00 was spot on " people can use religion as an excuse for goodness or badness" spot on with that one check the history books
  • @steelrain52
    Dude, stop asking the same damn questions over and over again.
  • @anna.m8
    I find the interviewer quite "demanding" and not really sensitive to her, in a way. I wish there would have been more questions for the audience. Not just an interview to answer all your personal questions that you got while reading her book.
  • @noeytindol5529
    Geez. He's giving away the whole book. I just got the book today. I wanted to hear more stories that weren't in the book.
  • @surfzombie2626
    She is a beautiful woman and sounds like her childhoow was a nightmare. Her father was such a control freak.
  • @mwest3191
    Hey, that’s my last name! NeverMo so I’m sure there’s no relation but It does interest me to imagine long ago Westover’s splintering into Mormon and Catholic branches 😅
  • @11UncleBooker22
    The % of "True believers" in ANY organization is moderate at best. However depending on the total number of members the % of "True believers" can be quite a large and sometimes a troublesome %. The historical facts are that ALL of the Joseph Smith Jr church's have various levels of separation/peculiar people foundations. This is a characteristic still found today to make them unique as organizations seeking to show a separation from the other Joseph Smith Jr church's. When SOOOOoooo much importance is placed on the return of a deity at ANY moment, as in Christendom, there should be NO surprise that a % of members in these cultures live as if preparing for said return is a normal daily function. Tara's father is in the % of "True believers" that also had a psychoses causing behavior that is separate and peculiar from the larger % of members in his religious culture. While most LDS were preparing for a possible 3 month power outage , Tara's father was preparing for an apocalypse.
  • @carborundorum
    It's really a shame that herbalism gets a bad rap due in part to a lack of knowledge.
  • I always used to laugh when illuminati/skull&bones/gaddianton conspiracys came up, but after watching bulding 7 collapse ( search for "building 7" here on youtube ) i must admit, i'm not that dismissive. Anyhow, awesome interview John & God bless you Tara!
  • @bolenjane
    I’m not Mormon but total believe in homeopathic remedies. I will not take penicillin and do not recommend it.