ROAD TO JONESTOWN

This book has left a very profound effect on myself. I suppose I began to read it to try and make sense of why over 900 people would make a journey from San Francisco to Guyana in South America to form their own Shangri-La or utopia in a place called Jonestown, named after the charismatic demagogue of a leader called Jim Jones. And when they got to the promised land to escape the threat of American government forces and Jim Jones visions of a nuclear Armageddon, after a couple of years would then embark on a mass suicide which included mothers killing their own children with cyanide (something that robs the oxygen in the blood and leads to a horrific death of wanting to breathe and having the life sucked out of you). What is equally remarkable is how much of the socialist Jim Jones was who wanted people to live in equality whether they were black or white and was driven to help, care and preach to all. However, he was also a complex man who along with his vision and well thought out goals was also full of contradictions and hypocrisy. He carried out the healings and pretended to cure people of cancer in an almost theatre like show of false hoods, misdirection and lies. The author tells a story without sensationalism which begins in his childhood and that he has some examples of how he was driven but also rather odd behaviours and a rather sad background before becoming a pastor. I was never less than riveted to how people followed and fell in love with such a man like Jones - including his wife who seemed kind and good but also stood by him even as he took lovers and by the end was lost in cocktails of drugs. And when the final days occur and are told, it is an utterly gripping account that has haunted me ever since it’s read. A remarkable story that I felt was well told although perhaps I still do not know why so many people chose to commit suicide and kill their own children (although many were obviously murdered also as some choose not to commit suicide and had to be forced). I found it an interesting parable to some of the stories going on at this moment in time where people follow charismatic demigods or other types of lunatic, believe in their dreams and wish to find some promise land which will probably end up in some futile horror show. Perhaps history doesn’t repeat itself but people do. An excellent book that I will recommend highly and works on many levels.

This is a captivating story. I knew some of the detail of the Jonestown incident before I bought the book so was a bit apprehensive that I might be going over stuff I already knew. I was wrong.The author provides a huge amount of detail about the earlier part of the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones and at no point does it get boring. I've read biographies about infamous individuals tied to events and the author has had to pad out the book with boring irrelevant details. Not in this case, at no point does it feel padded out and it's an absolute page turner.In the era where Netflix and others are creating some fantastic true crime dramas, this feels like the written word equivalent. A factual event told by a brilliant story teller, as good as any made up story.

What I knew about Jones before reading this, you could have written on a postage stamp. An extremely informative book, found it really interesting. Hugely recommended, esp at (currently) 99p on Kindle. Scary parallels between this and the whole Brexit thing.(One slight bad side; from about 73% on Kindle, so three quarters of the way through, it's just blurb about where the author got all his info from. Which is fine, and required presumably, but I didn't realise I'd nearly finished the book when I had)

I always wondered what happened, I was 11 at the time I did not know about this, I went on holiday to Guyana in my twenties because my now ex partner was born there. Jonestown was mentioned but those around me did not want to talk about it, I did not question it any further. Can you imagine you think you are going somewhere to live to build a community, your passport taken on arrival, your money is controlled by someone. I have been in the jungle with a guide its not a place you can just wonder around so to be in the middle of the jungle is overwhelming, Guyana is a lovely country. Many of the followers would not have known what was really happening until it was too late. But could it been stopped in time?

Plenty of detail and anecdote, including testimony of some survivors, but still frequently relies on events rather than psychology. Worth a read to get a good overview of the events themselves. But that is only part of the story,. And perhaps the most easily written part of the story. It never satisfactorily answers the money-shot question; why did hundreds of people kill themselves on the instructions of James Jones?