Customer Reviews

The broken god

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This is a gripping true story told by a woman who was considered a daughter to Jim and Marceline Jones.
Although she left the group a few years before its destruction, she remained on very friendly terms with the Jones' , especially Marceline.
She was one of the people who went to Guyana with Leo Ryan. She went in high hopes of being able to diffuse the situation in Jonestown by getting in to talk to the Jones'.
You can literally feel her shock coming off the page when she finds out that Jim Jones had ordered her gunned down by his guards if she stepped off the plane in Jownstown.
She also relates how Leo Ryan -sensing danger - refused to let her go to Jonestown thereby saving her life.
These are stories that I had never read in any other Jonestown book.

For such an important figure in this saga, Bonnie Thielmann seems to have been pretty much ignored in other books on the subject.

Its true that she wasn't there for the final days, but she still knows plently about the group including the Jones' time in Brazil, which is where she first met them.
Lastly, this book paints the most complete picture of Marceline Jones as a person that I have read so far.
Mrs. Thielmann was close to her for many years and they retained that closeness right up until the time that Marceline left for Jonestown.

Jim Jones onetime "daughter" tells her inside story of People's Temple. She tells of the chaos, the shams, and the doctrine. I learned a lot, in the gripping short story (about 154 pp.)Basically, Jim Jones created a micro-communist society, and got so puffed up, he believed he was God.

This woman was involved in it, but got out before they left to Guyana. She does a good job at telling a fascinating story, but I felt she left out the explanation about how they ended up in Guyana, and their reasoning for having a mass suicide. But then, she didn't have a first hand account of the final days. So for that side of the story, I will have to go to another book.

She does write about some of the bizarre events and doctrine that were taught, and her relationship with the Jones.'

One of the reviewers is right about Marceline Mae Baldwin Jones better known as Mother Jones or Marci. The author obviously saw Mother Jones as a role model and knew that she was also in a volatile, violent relationship with a man who threatened her and the lives of their own children years before the mass suicide rituals. I do agree that the author could have gone into detail about life in the People's Temple but I felt since the book was published only months after the tragedy of November 18, 1978 where resources were few. Bonnie was spared to tell her story. If the book was published later, she would have learned that Mother Jones had pleaded with her husband over the lives of the children but lost her battle and went up and drank the poison and died facing down like everybody else. Unlike other past tragedies, society has blamed those who unwillingly became pawns in Jones' deadly game. I felt the author humanized Linda Sharon Amos better known as Sharon because Jones preferred that name over Linda who was his right hand lieutenant. The last time that Bonnie saw Sharon was the day before it all happened. Sharon went from being a friend to killing her own children before taking her life. Unlike everybody else in Jonestown who had a gun to their heads to drink the poison, Sharon followed her leader's final plans to the end. Bonnie didn't spend as much time with the People's Temple as other survivors did but she spent enough and was part of the inner circle. When she broke away, she was not greeted with death threats like others or stalked as well. Fortunately for Bonnie, she had a second chance and she also was a safe haven for Marci Jones who needed it from the abuse and threats of her own husband. Bonnie knew the reports were true but she also saw the people of Jonestown as captives who were unable to leave without their passports, money, and identification. I appreciated how she explained the Jim Cobb story and how Bonnie tried to get to attend Congressman Leo J. Ryan's funeral. He pretty much saved her life by keeping her in Georgetown but lost his own. Bonnie's life as others have been scarred by the events of November 18, 1978 in a small South American country named Guyana which is always associated with Jonestown.

It was ok but not enough depth for someone who knew the Jones' quite some time. The book is very small and can be read in one day. She refers to meeting Jones as a teenager thru her father in Brazil and came to babysit for them. Her father and Jones became fast friends and he took and interest in protecting her. For instance, he gave her a handful of condoms when she became of age and started dating.
Somehow her family ended up with the Jones' back in America under the lure of better opportunities, where he started the Temple.
She speaks of Jones' many affairs that affected his wife and turned their relationship distant.
Though he considered her a daughter, Jones propositioned her and probed for her sex life info.
There is brief talk of life in the Temple and abroad. Stories of the Temples yearly long, uncomfortable, cross country, un-air conditioned bus trips from Cali to Mexico to Canada in which she ran high, untreated fevers and became ill due to lack of air condition etc. They'd be on Temple busses all day and night without adequate food, water, shower and bathroom breaks for all except Jones. She spoke of Jones' propensity for sneakiness. She had caught him with a young woman whilst everyone else was made to wake from sleeping and get off the bus.
According to her, most Temple members were extremely loyal to Jones with snitching and pettiness. She had made only a few friends in the Temple. She spoke of Jones demanding high tithes from his members even if destitute. If rules weren't complied with there was usually some punishment though she didn't go too much into the forms.
Eventually, her relationship cooled with the Jones' as she came to defy him and pursue her own career and relationships. There are interesting pictures in this book especially those with Jones holding her children. In the many audio tapes of Jones that I've listened to over the course of many months, I figured out one thing about Jones; He would continuously talk about or mention anyone he loved or felt threatened by. He never mentioned Bonnie. So it would be arguable to say she may have been a distant memory to him once they reached Guyana.
Bonnie didn't spend much of any time in Guyana and she started on this book shortly after the tragedy. It would've been nice had she went into a little more detail about life in the Temple since she was there and at one point spent some time with the Jones'. I'm not sure if she was ever in his inner circle but much could be gleamed from her experience with what was once a mercurial Jones.

This is a very interesting book. Bonnie Thielmann allows you to get an up-close and personal view of mad cult leader Jim Jones and his family. She writes about the painstaking process of being carefully deceived by Jim Jones. She also tells the reader how she came to know Jesus as her personal Lord and Saviour.

I was hoping that Bonnie would discuss exactly the events that lead to the massacre in November of 1978, and how we as Christians can avoid ever falling into the hands of a cult leader like Jim Jones.

I recommend this book for anyone who is investigating the People's Temple for school, work or for ministry.