33 years later, it’s still inconceivable

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

On November 18, 1978, the day of the Jonestown massacre, I was nine years old.  I vaguely remember the news stories, but I’ve always wanted a more adult understanding of these inconceivable and tragic events.  I don’t read a whole lot of non-fiction, but Julia Scheeres’ A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Faith, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown seemed like exactly what I had been looking for.

The book takes its title from an eerie 1975 Jones quote, “I love socialism, and I’m willing to die to bring it about, but if I did, I’d take a thousand with me.”  And it delivers on what it promises in the title, starting with “hope.”  Scheeres describes Jones’s early life in Indiana, and the way he was drawn to the church from childhood.  By the time he was a teenager, he was preaching on street corners.  And he was preaching a fairly radical (for the times) message of inclusion, integration, and racial tolerance.  This was the philosophy on which he founded his first church in Indiana in 1954.  Reverend Jones’s attitudes about race were ahead of his time, and he quickly built up a devoted, multicultural flock.

Alas, it didn’t take long for “deception” to enter the picture.  Jones was a practitioner of faith healings.  While some may claim to have been genuinely helped by the man, his trickery in bringing about his so-called miracles is well established.  In addition to simple cons, Jones was a master manipulator.  He utilized all kind of tactics—from inducing paranoia to actually drugging people without their knowledge—all the while increasing his sway over his church-goers.  A few years after the Indiana church was established, he convinced a healthy percentage of them to pick up and relocate to rural Northern California to avoid a predicted nuclear explosion in Chicago.  The relocated People’s Temple thrived in Redwood Valley, California, before it eventually relocated yet again to San Francisco.

Scheeres reduces the epic tragedy to a human scale by introducing the reader to several individual church followers.  Dating all the way back to the Indiana church were sisters Hyacinth Thrash and Zipporah Edwards.  In Redwood Valley, grief led the entire Bogue family to the church.  In San Francisco, juvenile delinquent Stanley Clayton stayed on the straight and narrow because of the church community.  And Edith Roller, a well-educated, 61-year-old “opinionated loner” came to the church as an agent of social change.

Scheeres writes, “The world seemed to be imploding in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his message struck a nerve.  The headlines were saturated with death: Vietnam, nuclear war, murdered civil rights leaders, and student protestors.  Americans of every stripe were angry, insecure, afraid.  Gone was the Leave It to Beaver complacency.  The establishment fissured along with its enabler—mainstream religion—and people turned for solace to alternative sources of supposed wisdom, including gurus, spiritualism, astrology, and self-help.  The time was ripe for a self-appointed prophet like Jim Jones.”

Scheeres details the events that led inexorably to the Temple’s final move to Guyana and the shocking tragedy that occurred there.  She is assisted in this effort by new information in the form of thousands of pages of FBI documents that have recently been declassified.  The full perversity of what went on with Jones for years, and the crimes he perpetrated against his followers, is staggeringly difficult to believe: the sex, the drugs, the madness, and the abuse of power.  It’s a terrible, terrible story, and yet the book is a quick read—in part because the last 40-some pages of the book are made up of end-notes than can be easily skipped.

I think that Scheeres has done a reasonable job of relating the history in as impartial a manner as anyone could.  Following specific Temple members closely and watching their eventual fates unfold was an effective way to tell the story.  Where I felt let down was in trying to understand with any real depth the psychology of those involved.  I especially hungered for more information on what was going on inside Jones’s head, but that may be something we will never know. 

You couldn’t sell this story as fiction; it’s simply too unbelievable.  Looking back seems worthwhile, but in the end, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to have learned.

Mailbox Monday: The thankfully short edition!

Yes, it's my favorite thing--a short Mailbox Monday post!  I've hardly acquired any books this week, and one is a leftover I forgot to list last week.  But that's okay; I don't think I'm going to run out of literature any time soon.

So, as you can see, I did get to the Peter Orner event last week, but didn't make it to Gregory Maguire over the weekend.  I had plans all set up, but I was visiting with a sick friend, and she needed me more than Mr. Maguire did.  I don't think there will be any other lit events of note before December at this point, or at least there aren't any currently on my radar.

Things are going to be a little hit or miss on my end for the next few weeks as well.  I'm leaving on a brief business trip this afternoon, and I'll be back on Wednesday night.  I'm in town for a week, and then I'm flying to the east coast to spend Thanksgiving (and the week following it) with my family and friends back home.  I've always got the best of intentions of keeping up my blogging while I travel, but my track record is abysmal.  So, if posting is kind of erratic for the next few weeks, you know what that's about.

Right now, I'm in search of a feel-good, happy book, or my head is going to explode.  I tossed aside the hateful Umberto Eco novel to read the awesome Stephen King novel in two days, but then I found myself doing anything to avoid finishing the cursed book.  I read David Benioff's excellent and horrifically disturbing and depressing City of Thieves--which was also chock-full of anti-Semitism, I might add.  Then, to lighten things up, I read a non-fiction book about the Jonestown massacre, A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres.  Finally, I just bit the bullet and plowed my way through the The Prague Cemetery.  Seriously, it was torturous--and not because it was a bad book, either.  You'll see a review soon.  The point is, I need to read something light and cheery.  I am open to suggestions!

Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan
Release date: March 4, 2008
Source:  Purchased at Books, Inc.

I probably won't get around to this in the immediate future, but maybe in 2012?

11/22/63
by Stephen King
Release date: November 8, 2011
Source: Purchased with Audible.com credit

Yeah, yeah, this is old news already.  Does anyone else wonder why they didn't release this book two weeks later on 11/22/11?

From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant
by Alex Gilvarry
Release date: January 5, 2011
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

The tagline for this satire is:  High fashion and homeland security clash in a masterful debut.  That sounds worth checking out to me.  My friend Nicole is going to have a quandary, however.  Gilvarry is being compared to Gary Shteyngart and Junot Diaz--one of her most favorite and one of her least favorite authors.  What to do?

City of Thieves
by David Benioff
Release date: May 15, 2008
Source: Library

I remember all the buzz this novel had when it was published a few years ago, but it was my book group member Rachel who convinced me to read it.  It is as good as she said it was, but rather more disturbing than I expected. 




 Books finished this week:

11/22/63 by Stephen King
City of Thieves by David Benioff
A Thousand Lives: The Untold story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco


Currently reading:

I don't read anymore.


Okay, what awesome books did you acquire this week?  What have you been reading?  Please let us know in the comments!

Mailbox Monday: Fall Leaves Edition

Is it just me, or has it been a really long week?  I did have a rough week last week, and I'll do you the favor of sparing you the gory details.  In addition to my medical issues, I had a truly squirm-inducing encounter with a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist.  I'll be blogging about that at some point soon.  It was not the highlight of my week.

On the other hand, I did get to attend quite a few excellent Litquake events, saw many friends, and got to go drinking with a bunch of awesome lady novelists.  Again, there will be follow-up blog posts, video, and more, as soon as I can get around to it.  Penny, was it you who was talking to me about Mira Grant and her alter-ego in the comments recently?  I shot some really great video of her reading from Feed that you can look forward to later this week.  Or perhaps I should save the zombies for Halloween?  I have so much fun stuff to share!  And at some point, I really need to write some book reviews...

Tonight, I have to choose between working really late (henceforth to be known as "what I should do") and going to see Alice Hoffman at the JCC, or Michael Ondaatje in conversation with Michael Chabon at City Arts & Lectures.  Any thoughts?  Tomorrow night is the book group that I run.  And after that I'm not sure what else is up for the coming week.  Oh yeah, I'm flying to Seattle on Thursday, where I will be seeing novelist Boyd Morrison and his lovely wife Randi over the weekend.  So, that's a full enough week.

I want to take a moment to say "hi" to all the nice folks who are visiting this blog because of the Blog Hop.  Already I can see that it's another huge success.  It's nice to see some fresh faces on the blog.  Do come back any time.  :-)

And on that note, an entirely too long and very diverse list of acquisitions this week...

The Night Eternal
by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan
Release date: October 25, 2011
Source: Finished hardback from publisher

This was a really pleasant surprise!  The first novel of this trilogy scared the hell out of me, but I couldn't put it down.  I think I've been waiting for the third to come out before reading the second book in the series.  This would make for a fun Halloween treat!

The Time in Between
by Maria Duenas
Release date: November 8, 2011
Source: Finished hardback from publisher

I've already got a couple of galleys of this novel that has been getting some serious promotion from Simon & Schuster.  I haven't heard anything specific about the novel itself yet, but I'm looking forward to giving it a read.  If the house is pushing it that hard, I want to know why.  Count on a galley giveaway soon.

Eat Vegan on $4.00 a Day: A Game Plan for the Budget Conscious Cook
by Ellen Jaffe Jones
Release date: June 15, 2011
Source: Finished paperback from publicist

I'm what you might call a "flexitarian," rather than a vegetarian or vegan, but this looks like a great resource for our times.  I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Release date: October 11, 2011
Source: Purchased at awesome indy, Books, Inc.

Hmmm, I wonder what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Susan had an unpleasant encounter with this week?  All I can say is that the novel is great.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick
Release date: March 1, 2007
Source: library

There's a film coming and he has a new book out.  It was time to finally read this.  Plus, kids books are just what the doctor ordered when you aren't feeling well.

Death Match
by Lincoln Child
Release date: May 4, 2004
Source: library

More comfort reading while laid up.  I've had a galley since forever, but I finally read it on my Kindle.

Lightning Rods
by Helen DeWitt
Release date: October 5, 2011
Source: Kindle purchase

I've been feeling guilty for ages that I haven't got around to reading DeWitt's cult classic, The Last Samurai.  So, now that her second novel has been released more than a decade after the first, I was determined to read it in a timely manner.  OMG, do not buy this book!  I've heard to many good things about her debut to doubt it's the truth.  What happened?

Blindness
by Jose Saramago
Release date: September 28, 1998
Source: $2.99 Kindle sale

I've never read it.  'Nuff said.

The Lost Goddess
by Thom Knox
Release date: February 2, 2012
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

I've never read Mr. Knox.  Have any of you?  This adventure thriller looks like it could be really good or really bad!  I'll totally give it a try.

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown
by Julia Scheeres
Release date: October 11, 2011
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

I have always been fascinated with the Jonestown tragedy, in part because of my vague memories from childhood, and in part because it's an amazing, awful story.  Do you know that I live one block from the site of the old temple in San Francisco?  It's a post office now.

The Demi-Monde: Winter
by Rod Rees
Release date: December 27, 2011
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

I'm not sure this will be my cup of tea, but I'm curious.  Becky, if you read it first, please let us know your thoughts!

The Vanishers
by Heidi Julavits
Release date: March 13, 2012
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

I'm more interested in the mother/daughter themes of this novel than the supernatural ones.  We'll see...





Books finished this week:

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Death Match by Lincoln Child
The Callahan Chronicles by Spider Robinson


Currently reading:

There but for the by Ali Smith (I'd be done by now if the damn book had punctuation!)


So, what books have you acquired this week?  What have you been reading?  Please let us know in the comments!