Summary
In order to qualify for the PhD program at Cambridge, Tara must produce an original piece of research. After thinking about which research topic she should pick, Tara decides to investigate Mormonism as an intellectual movement. This research proves to be exhilarating for Tara, and it leads her to feel confident in both the social and academic aspects of her Cambridge life. Although her last encounter at Buck’s Peak was unpleasant, Tara feels a need to return home again for Christmas. While at home, Shawn tells Tara that he plans to kill Audrey for the attitudes that she holds against him.
Disturbed by Shawn’s threatening language, Tara decides to finally confront her parents and notify them of Shawn’s abuse. Gene, however, is not receptive to Tara’s grievances. Instead, he denies the validity of Tara’s concerns and insists that she needs proof for these accusations. Fearing for her safety, Tara avoids seeing Shawn while she is at home. However, Shawn finds Tara and eerily drops a bloody pocket knife in her hand.
Tara flees home, deeply disturbed by Shawn’s escalating threats. Tara realizes that Shawn used the bloody knife to murder his German Shepherd. Back at Cambridge, Tara receives a letter from Audrey proclaiming that Shawn has been saved and is now absolved of his sins. Now, Gene, Faye, and Audrey are convinced that Tara has been “overtaken” by the devil. After Tara receives this letter, she knows that her familial relationship is irreversibly damaged. Although she receives fellowships to study in Paris and teach at Harvard, Tara dissociates and enters a deep depression.
In September, Tara begins classes at Harvard. She is excited by her different classes and extracurricular activities, and she successfully completes the first chapter of her dissertation. One day, Tara receives news that her parents are coming to Harvard to “save her.” During their visit, Gene and Faye travel to the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York, in hopes of reconverting Tara. As Gene touches the windmill and stone, he is overcome with religious fervor. Tara, however, feels nothing.
Tara realizes that her inability to yield to her father’s religious wishes will result in her being disowned. She attempts to reconcile with her parents by taking them on a detour to Niagara Falls, but Gene and Faye remain focused on their mission. Back at Harvard, Gene gifts Tara with a vial of consecrated oil in hopes of cleansing her one final time. When Tara refuses, Gene and Faye leave in a rush, proclaiming that it’s “better to sleep on a bench than with the devil.” As time progresses, Tara experiences traumatic flashbacks related to this experience.
In addition to experiencing night terrors, Tara stops working on her thesis. She begins to regret her defiance to her father’s conversion, and she buys a ticket to Buck’s Peak in an effort to reconcile with her family. When Tara tells her friends and her more rational siblings that she is going home, everyone fears for her safety. Within her first hour at home, Tara discovers an email that her mother wrote to Shawn’s wife, Emily. In the email exchange, Faye explains that Tara is “lost without faith.” Although Tara had always suspected that Faye shared Gene’s radical religious feelings, this confirmation proves that Tara cannot repair her relationship with her parents. She leaves Buck’s Peak in a huff.
Tara completes her fellowship at Harvard and travels to Amman to visit Drew. While traveling, Tara realizes that her education has led her far from home—physically, psychologically, intellectually, and emotionally. Back at Cambridge, Tara continues to experience debilitating symptoms of a nervous breakdown. In addition, she is failing her PhD and may need to drop out. After feeling like she has hit rock bottom, she receives support from her brother Tyler and begins enrolling in the university’s counseling service. Things turn for the better—she passes her dissertation and finally feels a sense of pride in her accomplishments.
Tara is pulled to return home once again. While at Buck’s Peak, she attempts to reconcile with Faye first. However, Faye refuses to meet her daughter without Gene, claiming that it is blasphemous for a wife to meet someone behind their husband’s back. Tara first interacts with her family when she receives news that her grandmother has passed away. At the funeral, she sees all of her estranged siblings and their families. This scene causes Tara to reflect upon her father’s legacy.
Even though her visits to Buck's Peak are met with familial disapproval, Tara makes a concerted effort to return home annually. The memoir concludes with Tara recognizing that her past self and present self can still coexist despite her alienation from her family. Most importantly, Tara credits her formal and informal education for allowing her to grow into the scholar and citizen she is today.
Analysis
In her eternal attempt to reconcile her academic and personal lives, Tara proposes a promising thesis topic for her PhD research. Tara is motivated to study Mormonism within a historical and intellectual context with the hope that, in some way, it will bring her closer to her family. However, Tara’s attempts to reconcile are one-sided. Shawn’s behavior grows increasingly violent, and Tara fears for the safety of herself and Audrey. When Shawn drops the bloody knife in Tara’s hand, Tara has the unsettling realization that her brother is a sadist.
The brutal slaying of Shawn’s German Shepherd is Tara’s final straw—she can no longer be silent. However, when Tara confronts her parents in order to tell them about Shawn’s violent behavior, she is met with opposition. Gene and Faye’s reaction is an example of gaslighting—a form of psychological manipulation in which one person continuously casts doubt on the beliefs and observations of another to the point that the person questions their own memory and judgment. Gene insists that Tara provide concrete proof to back up her claims. This experience disheartens Tara, but she is hopeful that she and Audrey can convince her parents otherwise.
Tara’s optimism is short-lived. When she receives news from Audrey that Shawn has been saved and that Tara is actually the “guilty” member of the family, Tara truly understands how her parents' religious extremism is weaponized. Gene and Faye insist that Mormonism will save Tara from the devil, and their surprise visit to Harvard demonstrates how they fail to respect Tara’s personal and intellectual space. When Gene and Faye are unable to successfully reconvert Tara, the narrator is left with the residual psychological effects of gaslighting. She develops debilitating anxiety attacks, night terrors, and depression, and she nearly sabotages her completion of the Cambridge PhD program.
Although Tara eventually finds her footing, she continues to feel this gravitational pull towards home. While she knows she is unwanted at Buck’s Peak, she has a hard time believing that she will never speak to her parents again. Tara’s attempt to reconnect with her mother comes from the author’s confidence in the strength of the maternal bond. Tara knows that Faye’s life has suffered due to Gene’s beliefs, and she attempts to approach her mother with this understanding in hopes of building a mutual sense of confidence. However, when Faye rejects Tara, she realizes that their relationship is ultimately beyond repair.
In the memoir’s closing pages, the audience truly grasps what Westover defines as “being educated.” For Tara, education is not just knowledge acquired by books or articles. Rather, Tara was able to use academic resources and cultural experiences to explore her own identity and ultimately fuel her radical self-acceptance. Tara’s arrival is further evidenced by the cathartic process of writing her memoir. Ultimately, Tara’s authorship is an acknowledgment and reclamation of her life, in all of its horrors and its victories.
