How did Jim Jones, the leader of Peoples Temple, convince more than 900 of his followers to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced punch? From a master of narrative nonfiction comes a chilling chronicle of one of the most notorious cults in American history. Using riveting first-person accounts, award-winning author Candace Fleming reveals the makings of a monster: from Jones’s humble origins as a child of the Depression… to his founding of a group whose idealistic promises of equality and justice attracted thousands of followers… to his relocation of Temple headquarters from California to an unsettled territory in Guyana, South America, which he dubbed "Jonestown”… to his transformation of Peoples Temple into a nefarious experiment in mind-control.…
"Yes. This is the story of Jim Jones and the community that he brought together that originally started in the United States and eventually moved to Guyana. Most of the news focused on the tragic ending in 1978, which was basically a mass suicide that Jim Jones executed. What’s brilliant about what Candace Fleming does here is, she talks about all the eclectic types of people from different backgrounds that came together because they wanted to be part of a community. She does an exceptional job highlighting and providing perspectives, having interviewed some of the very few survivors or people who had first-hand knowledge of the situation. She builds context through narrative, and we get to know some of the people. No question about it, it seems like a metaphor for some of what’s going on in the United States and around the world, for why people develop and then become grounded in these beliefs and stances as to what is true and what they need, and also how so many people are looking for the antidote to a problem. This book is taking a different lens. I think that’s really important, and she does it in such a captivating way. I’m a huge fan — if Candace Fleming writes it, I will read it. There are some original photographs. It’s YA in terms of the target audience, and you can tell by the tone and the pacing. But from a research point of view, it’s very much like an adult nonfiction book, and that’s one of the things I really appreciate about it. I think it’s for readers age 13 or 14 and up, depending on how comfortable they are with reality. There are some chapters that need a bit of context."
