Customer Reviews

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like many people born in 1980 or later, I grew up with a vague notion of Jonestown as a weird town in a jungle where a bunch of people in a cult drank poison Kool-Aid and died. I use the term "drink the Kool-Aid" when I refer to someone completely buying in to an idea or a cause. But until I read this book, I never really knew what Jonestown was all about.

Scheeres provides a service in this book, both as a skillful historian and as a compassionate human being. She synthesizes hours of audio recordings and written documents into a gut-wrenching tragedy that will linger with the reader. The true strength of her work is the constant tension between the hope of the individual characters and the inevitable doom that presses down on every page. Scheeres truly loves the victims of the massacre, and she is clearly determined to present them in sympathetic ways, sharing stories of simple people who came to Peoples Temple because it offered real racial integration, miraculous healings, and loving community. They believed in a socialism that affirmed the value of every human being, and they were willing to sign away all of their possessions for the cause.

As the group developed, though, things got darker, and Scheeres brings in an impressive level of detail in her examples. She writes about demonstrably fake "healings" and sham "assassination attempts" that Jones fabricated to make his followers feel persecuted by outsiders. There are heart-dropping scenes when church members are forced to sign blank pieces of paper, knowing that if they desert their communities, then the church leaders will type confessions (to murder, child molestation, or any other crimes) and deliver them to authorities. Jones also twists the spiritual bases of his organization when he literally stomps on Bibles onstage and declares himself God.

By the time the community moves to a compound in Guyana, Scheeres has found a comfortable rhythm, increasing the tension like a horror movie as the inevitable massacre swirls in a tightening band around the village. Jones reads about "revolutionary suicide" and completely misinterprets the term, missing the idea of "making progress for a revolutionary cause, even though it results in your death" and creating a moronic "kill yourself and leave a mean note" kind of definition. He insists that his community is being hunted by outsiders because of their commitment to socialism, while he predictably lounges in an air-conditioned drug-induced haze as his people sweat and starve. His obsession with death strangles his people, as their objections are worn down by hunger, fear, isolation, sleeplessness, and dehumanizing punishments for disloyalty.

Around this point in the narrative, the reader will surely have noticed that most of Scheeres' tale is based on facts from official documents and recordings. Scheeres only presents a few point-of-view characters to share their observations of daily life. While this focus seems troubling at first, the reader will come to realize that the main characters are so few because everyone else is going to die a horrible death in the jungle. It is a terrifying experience, and the narrative thunders toward its macabre conclusion with an intense power.

This book is a complex treasure, a road to hell paved with unapologetically noble intentions, and Scheeres has accomplished a great feat with it. She never loses her grasp of the humanity of her characters in the pursuit of her plot to its inevitable bloody conclusion. She will break your heart in the end, but only because she has worked so hard to win your heart in the first place.

Scheeres does a brilliant job outlining the events leading up to the Jonestown massacre. I can only imagine how daunting it was to sift through thousands of pages of document and hundreds of tapes and interviews, much of which was recently released by the FBI, to create this concise yet comprehensive depiction of Jim Jones' ministry and the subsequent tragedy.

Jones' success in rehabilitating criminals and drug addicts and his acceptance of followers of all ages and races was initially inspiring. What began as a Christian mission of love and an opposition to discrimination turned into "Divine Socialism." Those who were initially drawn to Jones' faith healing and message of inclusion were pawns in his deceptive practices. As his thirst for power and his drug use and worsened, his paranoia increased, leading to his mistrust in the U.S. and thus his desire to emigrate to his colony in Guyana. He successfully convinced a majority of disciples to relocate to this socialist "paradise" only to find themselves in crowded compound with not enough to eat and their leader contemplating his final solution of "revolutionary suicide." These poor gullible folks were led to believe that they were under siege and that their children would be tortured. Jim Jones' deception and paranoid delusions led to the death of over 900 people including more than 300 children who were killed against their will. This is a sad piece of history but one that Scheeres conveys with essential background and appropriate gravity.

This is one of those books that you don't read for pleasure. To say that what happened at Jonestone was a tragedy is an understatement of incredible proportion. That goes without saying. Even though I once watched a documentary on television about Jonestown, I didn't know much about it. (I was only 2 years old in 1978). As I watched that documentary, I remember thinking "Why didn't they just leave?" This book helped me realize that the answer to that question is far more complex than it seems. The people at Jonestown left the United States in search of a dream. They wanted to live in a utopia of racial equality and harmony. By the time they realized just how dangerous and unstable Jim Jones really was, the settlement had become pretty much like a concentration camp. It can be easy to judge people who get involved with cults as stupid and naive. We tell ourselves that we would never get into a situation like that. But I think reality is that all humans need to believe in something. I think if the circumstances were right, anyone could be duped by a cult. That is why books like this are so important. I think it is so important to recognize the warning signs of a cult and to be proactive. Cult leaders like Jim Jones will often brainwash their followers, control them through brainwashing and some type of abuse, and isolate them from family and friends. I hope that people will read books like this and that something good will eventually come out of something so horrific and tragedy. I think it is also important to remember that that these were real people. They were someone's friend, mother or father, son or daughter, grandparents, and friends. They had lives and names. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it's easy to look back and see the clear warning signs. To be sure, the lessons to be learned from this tragedy are difficult, painful, and sobering, but they are lessons that must be learned nonetheless. I hope and pray that a tragedy of this magnitude never happens again. But as the old saying goes "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

A powerful and haunting tale that will shock, horrify, and disturb you on the deepest possible level.

I vividly remember seeing news reports from the 1978 Jonestown massacre. I remember being especially perplexed at the notion that anyone could poison children, especially their own children, or that so many people could be induced to commit suicide together. After reading Julia Scheeres's new book,A Thousand Lives, I have a better understanding of what happened and why.

Scheeres has an interesting take on the issue: she is the author of Jesusland, a memoir in which she discusses her own upbringing as the child of conservative/fundamentalist Christian parents, including a time during which she and her brother were sent to a foreign religion-based reform school. Her personal background helped convince Jonestown survivors that she could be trusted with their recollections and gave her unprecedented access to inside information about how Jonestown functioned and how the last days went down. She also had access to thousands of pages of documents recently declassified by the US government, many of them collected in the days immediately following the massacre. This enables her to provide a very detailed look at how Jonestown functioned and how conditions there deteriorated, and why Congressman Leo Ryan's factfinding trip was the unintended catalyst for Jones' suicide/murder plans.

Scheeres' inside access to both survivors and surviving documentation forms one of the strengths of the book. Her compassion for the members of People's Temple is also evident throughout. She does a good job painting a picture of individual members: their previous lives, why they were attracted to the idea of Jonestown, how they experienced their life in Guyana, how they escaped (or didn't escape) the November massacre. The book also benefits from the morbid fascination we feel in response to tragedies of this magnitude; seeking answers, deconstructing events like this is a way we process the horror.

That being said, I did feel that the book had a few issues that made it less than five-star material. The book focuses on Jonestown, and although it does provide some background into the People's Temple and Jim Jones' personal life prior to Guyana, I thought that this part of the book would benefit from being expanded. The depiction of Jim Jones in his earlier years, was glossed over and I think the rest of the book suffers a bit for that. Conversely, I think the book got a bit repetitive and bogged down in detail toward the middle-- perhaps a function of the material on Jonestown that was newly available for review. Last, I felt the author identified a bit too much with the members of the People's Temple to the point that it affected her objectivity in writing about the topic. For example, she studiously avoids using the word "cult," but clearly Jim Jones ran the People's Temple in a manner that jibes with the classic definition of a cult -- separating members from family and outside contact, controlling the nature and quantity of information available to members, coercing members into remaining and threatening dire consequences for leaving the group, the focus on a charismatic leader who is supposedly infallible. I understand that Scheeres was trying to avoid a loaded word, but I believe the book should have addressed this issue straight-on rather than tiptoeing around it. I also felt that her sympathy with the People's Temple members went too far, absolving them of all responsibility for their own personal choices. Yes, Jones was a con man, but on the other hand, wouldn't common sense suggest that a legitimate religious leader would not ask one to write false confessions as a condition of participation, or ask for parents to sign over legal guardianship of their children? There is a balance between blaming the victim and taking a hard look at bad choices that end up putting one in a place of danger, and this balance isn't explored at all, to the book's detriment.

On the whole, though, I found this a fascinating look at a horrifying mass suicide/murder, filling in many of the questions that I had about the entire tragedy. In a world where religious leaders, some say zealots, are increasingly in the news (both politically and socially, from Islamofascists to Christian fundamentalists to Scientologists), a hard look at the use of religion to manipulate and control large numbers of people is critical to avoiding more tragedies like this one, as well as to avoid poor political and individual decisions.

As a young survivor of this tragedy (17 years of age at the time), I found Julia Sheere's ability to summarize and tell the events to be quite compelling. I myself who was there, learned a great deal more of the inside workings and manipulations which occurred.
I am finally satisfied some body such as Julia took hold of the history of events and told them in such a manner to express we went to Jones Town - Because we had dreams of a better life! Not to die for some satanical, egomaniac!
Thank you Julia!
Thom Bogue

A THOUSAND LIVES by Julia Scheeres starts with a main point - the people who eventually died with the Peoples Temple in Jonestown did not join a cult. They thought they were joining a church that cared, a group of people who were genuine in their search of equality. What the victims wanted was something genuine and desirable - a world without discrimination and hate. Scheeres uses a mixture of documents collected from Jonestown and the Peoples Temple and firsthand accounts to piece together a story that reads like literary fiction while being all too real. The stories these people tell mix horrifying elements, control, and domination with hope for the future, hope for a better life. The way Scheeres tells the story of Jonestown is perfect, eloquent, and heart wrenching.

From the stories of scared teenagers looking for a second chance to elderly women who strove to be equal with the world around them, the stories in A THOUSAND LIVES will make you step back and think about your world and what you would do if you were in their shoes.

So yeah, this isn't my usual blog fare. I mean, yeah, it says in my review policy section that I like books about cults, but I didn't expect that I would ever post a review of a book about a cult on Book Brats. I never thought that many other people my age with my taste would want to read a book like this besides me. But do I think you should give it a shot.

"Those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it." A quote that Jim Jones used to stir his people, but at the same time, a quote that is so true. If we don't remember our past, we really are bound to make our mistakes all over again.

The author started researching Jim Jones as she was writing a novel about a preacher in Indiana. She became so mesmerized by the files that she decided to write about him instead. She points out that "no one joins a cult." When Jim started out, he appeared to be genuinely sincere about helping the poor, ending racism (this was in the 1950s, and he was a pioneer in desegregation) and helping drug addicts.

But, as with many a charismatic spiritual leader, power led to pride, and pride led to downfall. Jim resorted to deception that included such outrageous behavior as drugging an elder lady, placing a cast on her leg, and later "miraculously" healing her, then cutting the cast and displaying her ability to walk in front of the congregation. Some of his staff even disguised themselves as invalids and were "healed." Ironically, there did appear to be one genuine healing; one of the main women in this book was healed of breast cancer and became a staunch believer in Jim after that.

Later Jim even became hooked on speed, which likely caused even more manic delusion. When he found inconsistencies in the Bible, he somehow came to believe that HE was some sort of savior. He began to control the congregation with sex (engaging in sex with both genders), beatings ("Adults caught smoking or drinking were lined up and spanked en masse."), and some very bizarre other methods. For example, people proved their loyalty to him by signing confessions to having molested their children or murdered someone and hid the body--and these were filed away to be used against them if they ever left the church or betrayed Jim!

When they were harassed by authorities, Jim began the plan to take them to South America where they could set up a utopia. I was shocked to learn from this book that he began fantasizing about a mass suicide right from the start of this South American move. He would frequently ask them if they were willing to kill themselves to make a statement about socialism. One chapter is about two teenage boys who tried to escape, not wanting to die as virgins!
Once the folks were in South America, Jim controlled the incoming and outgoing mail. Many never learned about family tragedies and even deaths in the USA.

Most interesting is that the book chronicles several individual members, those who survived and were able to fill in the details of what actually happened. We learn from their stories many of the good things that transpired in this community: self esteem was boosted in former young criminals; there was no sexism, racism, or ageism; people got off heroin; the homeless and dredges of society were included. No wonder he was able to get so many to follow him; on the outside, and in the beginning, things were pretty good.

The author concludes, "... while the phrase `drinking the Kool-Aid' has entered the cultural lexicon, its reference to gullibility and blind faith is a slap in the face of the Jonestown residents who were goaded into dying by the lies of Jim Jones, and, especially, to the 304 murdered children. As the FBI files show, Jonestown devolved into a miserable, terrifying place from which there was no escape. If anything the people who moved to Jonestown were idealists. They wanted to create a better, more equitable society..."
Susan Schenck, author of The Live Food Factor: The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet
and
Beyond Broccoli, Creating a Biologically Balanced Diet When a Vegetarian Diet Doesn't Work

I was in my mid teens when the tragedy at Jonestown took place. Much of the news back then portrayed these people as blind followers who willingly committed mass suicide. We've since come to know that this type of blanket statement does not come close to describing the real events. With 'A Thousand Lives', Julia Scheeres sifts through 50,000 pages of recently released documents, as well as audio tapes, to give us a clearer understanding of this tragedy.

We meet Jim Jones at his best, in his early years, when his message was one of a harmonious world in which we all live comfortably together. Then we witness his steady spiral downward through the eyes of various followers and documented events. Scheeres gives us a vivid look at life inside Jonestown and how more than 900 people wound up drinking poison at his command.

The flow of this book is quick and the writing style easy to follow. But I was left with some questions and wish parts had been more developed. I can't help but feel that much more information could have been salvaged from those 50,000 pages. For instance, the members left behind in California continued to support Jones without question, including his mass suicide plan, and that was never explained. Scheeres hinted at what was found during Jones's autopsy but never got back to that and elaborated. I also never fully grasped the mindset of his loyal aids in Guyana, who researched and imported the poison and weapons.

One person's insanity is easily explained. But dozens of people enforcing that insanity is harder to grasp. I would have liked more detail, though perhaps Jonestown is something we'll never fully understand.

Time Magazine's 1978 photo showing hundreds of dead bodies at Jonestown was forever indelibly etched in my teenage brain. Like my peers, we all wondered "how could anyone of faith follow such a madman to the point of death, and sacrifice one's children, too?!" Scheeres' book, A Thousand Lives, reveals for the first time the sequence of events and character development that lead to such an annihilation of precious human life. Scheeres' journalism background is evident in her portrayal of this tragic piece of history. Her painstaking research of government files and visit of the Guyana "ghost town" offers the reader the credibility one expects in attempting to wrap one's mind around the circumstances. Not only does this book provide the reader with perhaps a better understanding of the event, but also prompts the reader to extrapolate the lessons to our current society.

Unbelievable chilling reminder' how someone of religious influence can abuse the power he or she is vested with over their vulnerable constituents.

I'm just finished A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown, by Julia Scheeres, and was captivated by the inside story of the people who were caught up in the vortex of faith and fear that was Jonestown. Scheeres meticulously researched the history of Jonestown, interviewing survivors, and combing through thousands of pages of FBI documents, and all that research paid of with an authoritative book on one of America's darkest hours. But what makes the story most compelling is her sense of humanity, presenting the real lives and hopes of the people at Jonestown in a dramatic narrative, as well as her portrait of an idealistic era gone terribly wrong. If you also read her New York times-bestseller memoir, Jesusland, you get an incredible picture of fanaticism and faith in this country.