Other data indicate 40% of people will experience some form of family estrangement during their lifetime. And nearly 1 in 4 American adults today say they are either not speaking with a family member or have a family member who refuses to speak with them, according to a recent Deseret News/Harris-X survey. Such circumstances often lead to long-term estrangement. Family stories, of course, are complicated - and they are also heartrending when trauma or allegations of abuse are involved. The family agreed to let me visit their home in Clifton, Idaho, to share the stories they say lead to a house still divided nearly five years to the day that the book made its debut. She was the child who survived abuse and neglect in the remote mountains of southern Idaho, who scrabbled her way out of nonexistent “home schooling” to BYU, to Cambridge, to Harvard, to a doctoral degree to a book on The New York Times bestseller list for more than two years, to gripping interviews with Oprah and Ellen.Īnd then there is the rest of the sprawling Westover family, many of whom don’t recognize themselves on the pages of the manuscript that was dropped off anonymously.

Soon there would be scarcely a literary circle or neighborhood book club that wasn’t buzzing about first-time author Tara Westover.

Barack Obama and Bill Gates would declare it among their favorites that year. Within months of publication in 2018, the fame of the book “ Educated” would spread around the world - eight million copies sold, in 45 languages and a spot on all the major “best-of” lists. The Westovers had heard talk, enough to dread what was written about them - horrific stories of abuse, sibling-on-sibling violence, primitive homeopathic remedies for life-threatening accidents, scathing harangues from an end-of-days father, a doormat mother who failed to protect her young. The first the Westover family saw of the book that would rip apart their lives was a copy of the manuscript, left anonymously one night on the seat of a family truck. Those seeking resources or help concerning child abuse or neglect can contact the Division of Child and Family Services, including through an intake hotline at 1-85. Editor’s note: The following article discusses allegations of child abuse.

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