Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple [Paperback]

Deborah Layton (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 9, 1999

Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the "truly unforgettable" (Kirkus Review) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.

From Waco to Heaven's Gate, the past decade has seen its share of cult tragedies. But none has been quite so dramatic or compelling as the Jonestown massacre of 1978, in which the Reverend Jim Jones and 913 of his disciples perished. Deborah Layton had been a member of the Peoples Temple for seven years when she departed for Jonestown, Guyana, the promised land nestled deep in the South American jungle. When she arrived, however, Layton saw that something was seriously wrong. Jones constantly spoke of a revolutionary mass suicide, and Layton knew only too well that he had enough control over the minds of the Jonestown residents to carry it out. But her pleas for help--and her sworn affidavit to the U.S. government--fell on skeptical ears. In this very personal account, Layton opens up the shadowy world of cults and shows how anyone can fall under their spell. Seductive Poison is both an unflinching historical document and a riveting story of intrigue, power, and murder.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Deborah Layton was, by her own account, a typical rebellious youth, with nothing in her dossier to indicate that she would eventually find herself in Jim Jones's People's Temple in Guyana, looking for a way out of the green hell that had become the People's Temple Agricultural Project. She barely escaped in June 1978. Within months, more than 900 people drank Jones's cyanide punch and committed "revolutionary suicide" in the face of mounting stateside pressure on the cult, some of it prompted by Layton's own testimonials upon her safe return home. Her brother, Larry, also survived, and as one of the few left alive in Guyana became a scapegoat for Jones's crimes; he is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

There is a simple naiveté at the root of Seductive Poison. Layton's own youthful innocence, foremost, but also the desire to trust another person, the need for belonging and meaning, which led so many perfectly normal Americans to place their faith in a suicidal madman. Far from confirming the simplistically monstrous Jones of the public imagination, Layton paints the man as a dark, twisted shaman, by turns soothing, then suddenly malevolent and petty, with a hugely sadistic streak that belied his perfectly coifed hair, expensive suits, and impressive political connections. The scenes in which she describes her escape and flight to safety are wrenching, her last-minute conversation with Jones and his seductive appeal for her to return home to Jonestown are chilling, and her fear and indecision are still palpable on the printed page. For Layton to recount tales this personal and horrifying must have been tremendously difficult. For her to lift those recollections above the bargain-basement freak-show reputation the People's Temple has achieved in the popular imagination and depict them with the power of great tragedy is nothing but extraordinary. --Tjames Madison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Published on the 20th anniversary of the suicide-murder of more than 900 followers of Reverend Jim Jones in the Guyanese jungle, Layton's book is the first by a former high-level member of the People's Temple. A troubled teen from an affluent family in Berkeley, Calif., Layton and her mother were introduced to Jones by her brother, Larry. For seven years, she was Jones's close confidante in California, and in 1977, she left with her mother for the "Promised Land" of Jonestown. In the months that followed, she became aware of trouble in "Paradise," realizing she had arrived in a work camp patrolled by armed guards and ruled by a deceitful "Father" (Jones), who practiced manipulative mind-control tactics, dictated grueling physical labor, staged suicide drills and devised bizarre punishments such as wrapping a boa constrictor around the neck of a "sinner" or hanging children upside-down in a well. By May 1978, Layton had engineered a complex escape plan and returned to the U.S. Concerned for her mother, brother and friends still in Jonestown, she went to both the press and the State Department to warn of a possible mass suicide-murder but found few who believed her. Her fears were, of course, founded and not only did her mother die of cancer in Jonestown shortly before the mass suicide, but Larry was convicted for the conspiracy to kill Congressman Leo Ryan and is still in prison. Layton's lengthy account provides valuable insights into the inner workings of cults, and the details of her escape in the closing chapters generate strong suspense, hinting at film possibilities. "Never before published" photos unseen by PW. (Nov.) FYI: Layton's other brother, Thomas, wrote an earlier family history, In My Father's House (1981), with journalist Min S. Yee.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (November 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385489846
• ISBN-13: 978-0385489843
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (283 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #99 in Books > Self-Help > Death & Grief > Suicide

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 113 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading. A vaccine for the human mind... April 7, 2001

By Manu Kumar

Format:Paperback

Writing a review of Deborah Layton's "Seductive Poison" is not easy for me, because I can't think of any words that will be superlative enough to do justice to this book and to compliment the author on being so courageous and for so eloquently sharing intimate details of her experience of life in and her escape from a destructive cult.

I didn't know *anything* about cults or anything about Jonestown for that matter (I was not only too young at the time these events took place but also literally on the other side of the world) till a few weeks ago when I feared that someone who I loved and still love dearly may be in a cultic group. A search on Amazon led me to Deborah Layton's book and reading Seductive Poison combined with the events happening concurrently in my life can only be described as a life-changing experience.

Deborah Layton's account of life in and her escape from Jonestown is the most moving of any personal accounts I have ever read and I will admit that there were parts of the book that had me in tears... which says a lot. When I first read this book I was convinced that the book is just that... it's *a story which happened to someone else* and things like this don't happen today...until I started experiencing the effect of a mind-control group first hand -- happening to someone very close to me. If you ever do the mistake of thinking that this cannot happen to you... be sure to catch yourself, because 23 years later, after Jonestown, after Waco, after Heaven's Gate and numerous others... it's the same mind-control techniques and the same deceit and debauchery that is just as much prevalent today as it was then and potentially even more refined than it used to be.

Seductive Poison helped me understand what a cult is and made me realize that I cannot try and deal with the situation I was faced with using the rules I knew so far. The rationalism and logic that you would expect to always be present and help a person make their own informed decisions and judgments are sometimes suspended - and always suspended when an individual is under a situation of being under the control of a destructive mind-control group or even an the influence of an individual. I never realized that until I read Deborah Layton's experience.

Seductive Poison should be required reading in high-schools / colleges, just so more people are aware of the dangers lurking about them. I have personally bought over a dozen copies of this book to hand out to friends and family (Amazon must really love me by now!) and I don't think I'm done handing it out to people yet, because in my opinion, this book is a vaccine for the human mind and it is critical for *any* person living in today's society - in any country, in any environment - to develop some level of immunity which allows them to recognize a destructive situation before they get sucked in too deep.

I'll end with a quote from an email I sent shortly after reading Seductive Poison and co-relating events in my life: "The mind is a very fragile thing, and I strongly believe that no stimulus and no words can go by without affecting a person -- I don't claim to know more or less about what is true or not, but I do believe in being pragmatic and using ones own judgment and critical thinking to set the boundaries for our actions."

And last but not least, to Deborah Layton - thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your experience with all of us and thank you for being the amazing person I know you are.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars EYE OPENING ABOUT RELIGIOUS CULTS August 14, 2005

By Denis Benchimol Minev VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Deborah Layton was very corageous and thorough in writing this very interesting book about the Jonestown mass suicide. She was only a young woman when she first got in touch with Jim Jones's temple and got involved deeply with it.

The book is written in a way that the reader can follow each step of a member joining the cult, so we can track every single decision made and question it. It is interesting to note, following her narrative, that there seemed to be no highly unreasonable decisions, just a sequence of commitments that drove the temple members deeper and deeper into the psychological orbit of the reverend. From San Francisco to international banking transactions to hide Jim's money, to obsessively worrying about an imminent governemtn attack, the reader follows people who would otherwise be reasonable and kind doing outrageously aggressive and violent actions, even including physical torture.

There is also, unexpectedly, a high suspense section in the end, when Deborah escapes the compound in Guyana to try to come back to the US. Though I suppose she is a first time writer, she was quite capable of transmitting the gut wrenching circumstances of her escape.

This is an eye opening book, one that you will find yourself thinking about for at least a couple of months after reading it.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BRAVO! A Powerful story of resilience and strength July 23, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Deborah Layton's haunting memoir paints a poignant picture of her youth and seven years in the Peoples Temple. This poignant and heart-rendering testament to resiliency and determination is populated with wonderful and memorable characters. I fell in love with the savvy black grandmother, Mary who took Deborah and her mother under her protective wing; Lee, the Jonestown workcamp leader who lent humanity to a horrendous situation; and with Deborah, the lost and misguided innocent who finally gets-it and escapes to warn the world of Jim Jones evil intentions. I gasped, laughed, cried and wiped sweat from my brow as I read on through the night, unable to put this remarkbale book down. BRAVO!