BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF TARA WESTOVER
Born in a rural Idaho town to Mormon fundamentalist parents,
Tara Westover spent her childhood and teen years working in
her father’s scrap yard, helping her mother concoct and bless
herbal tinctures, and attending a small, devout local church.
Skeptical of public education, medical institutions such as
hospitals and clinics, and the U.S. government’s role in its
citizens’ lives more broadly, Tara’s parents lived a self-sufficient
lifestyle, homeschooling their children and tending to even
serious injuries with herbal tinctures.
