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Richard Westover is one of Tara’s older brothers. They’re very close in age and share many experiences together in childhood, but the main difference between them – their gender – sets them on increasingly different paths as they reach young adulthood. From an early age, Richard shows a penchant for reading and learning about science and history. Despite their father Gene’s dismissive and negative attitude toward higher education, Richard seems born for academia, spending much of his free time hiding in the family basement and reading through the encyclopedia. In some ways, Richard represents Tara’s alternate life – while they’re about the same age, his male gender marks him for opportunities and liberties that Tara doesn’t have as a female in the patriarchal culture of their family and greater Mormon community. Tara reflects on her jealousy of Richard, saying, “from the moment I had first understood that my brother Richard was a boy and I was a girl, I had wanted to exchange his future for mine.” Although Gene is very anti-university, he is more lenient with his sons seeking higher education, while his expectations for his daughters are far more constraining.
In adulthood, Richard has achieved a PhD in Chemistry, has married a mainstream Mormon woman, and no longer shares in his family’s fundamentalist, extremist practices. However, Tara observes that Richard attempts to exist in two entirely juxtaposing worlds: one in which he is happily married to an apparently normal, non-extremist woman and holds a PhD in a scientific field, and another in which he is still the loyal son of fundamentalist parents who don’t believe in modern medicine. Obviously, it’s a difficult and impossible predicament. Despite “escaping” the family, Richard does not question and interrogate his culture and upbringing to the same extent as his sister Tara. Although Richard is a first-hand witness to Shawn’s abuse of Emily, when Tara speaks up about her own abuse, he initially believes Gene and Faye’s story over Tara’s, which not only accuses Tara of lying but also suggests that she has been corrupted by the devil. It isn’t until Tyler’s letter to the family that Richard realizes he has once again fallen victim to his parents’ manipulation. At the end of the memoir, he has become one of Tara’s most supportive siblings.
