He's hard to write about, my dad. He doesn't really fit into any neat and tidy boxes. When I read Educated by Tara Westover, I was stunned. It was the first time I'd ever read anything that came close to describing my father. Tara's dad is an unrefined, unpolished version of mine. Her father swears and slams doors, he uses poor grammar, and doesn't care if his children wash their hands after they use the bathroom. He is someone my father would have befriended and attempted to mentor because they see eye to eye on conspiracy theories, distrust the government, and are obsessed with the End Times (second coming of Jesus, armageddon, Last Days, End of Days, etc). Both my dad and Tara's took a path through Mormonism that resulted in our being raised in sort of a cult within a cult. Our fathers functioned under the larger umbrella of mainstream Mormonism; they believed in and sustained the Prophet and the General Authorities. They studied the standard works and taught their families from these books. But they also dove deep into what my dad called 'the shrinking gospel.'