Shortform\u2019s guide to emotional intelligence<\/a>. If you like what you read here, there\u2019s plenty more to check out in the guide!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nTyler at Home<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Tyler Westover goes to college relatively soon after he’s introduced in the narrative, but one major event happens while he’s still living at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a trip to visit grandparents, Tyler and Tara’s father, Gene, abruptly declared that the family would have to hit the road back to Idaho, immediately. The family began their journey home in the early evening, meaning that they would be doing most of the 12-hour drive in the middle of the night. No one on board was wearing a seatbelt. Gene made Tara\u2019s 17-year-old brother Tyler do the entire drive in their uninsured vehicle.
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Around 6 am, Tyler fell asleep at the wheel, having driven nonstop all night through Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.<\/strong> The resulting crash was horrific. In addition to the family\u2019s new collection of broken bones, missing teeth, severe bruises, and emotional trauma, the car was surrounded by downed power lines. A farmer who witnessed the crash called the utility company to deactivate the lines. Only then could the family emerge from the car in relative safety. Miraculously, everyone survived and managed to make it back to Buck\u2019s Peak, but it was a defining moment for young Tara.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nTyler <\/strong>Westover: Tara’s Inspiration<\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe accident (and his guilt at having fallen asleep behind the wheel) may have been the final push that Tara\u2019s older brother Tyler Westover needed to leave home. One month after the accident, in the summer before Tara turned ten, he declared that he would be leaving home to attend college<\/strong>. His determination to learn was truly remarkable. He had a lifelong love of learning and was a true autodidact, having taught himself algebra and calculus.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nUnsurprisingly, Gene was displeased with his son\u2019s decision. For Gene, college was the epicenter of secular, godless sin and government indoctrination. He had told Tara that college was \u201cextra school for people too dumb to learn the first time around.\u201d He believed that liberal or \u201csocialist\u201d college professors (a favorite epithet of his and a frequent target of his denunciations) set themselves above God, believing their wisdom to be greater than His. That Tyler intended to study at Brigham Young University, an institution run by the Church of Latter-Day Saints, made no difference to Gene.
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Tyler Westover had always been different. He was intellectually curious, studious, and enjoyed reading books. His demeanor and interests set him apart from his more rough-and-tumble brothers, whom Tara would later liken to a pack of wolves\u2014always testing one another, always looking for weakness. <\/strong>This formed the basis of a special bond between Tara and Tyler. It was Tyler who introduced her to classical music, and helped ignite her first sparks of interest in the world outside Buck\u2019s Peak.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOnce he left for college, he rarely returned home. Years later, Tara, looking back through the lens of her own <\/em>liberation from the family, would observe that he was \u201cbuilding a new life for himself across enemy lines.\u201d<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\nHis decision to go to college and openly defy Gene\u2019s propaganda planted a seed in Tara. It would serve as a powerful example of a life that could be achieved outside the confines of her isolated world. Tara would later walk the path that had been paved by Tyler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given her own meager crumbs of an education, Tara saw Tyler\u2019s pursuit of college as revolutionary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n