One Thousand Lives

[matt819]

I don't read as much non-fiction as I sometimes think I should, falling back all too readily on my crime fiction.

However, I just finished One Thousand Lives, by Julia Scheeres, about the Jonestown mass murder/suicide in Guyana in 1978. I have to admit that I only vaguely remember reading about Jonestown at the time, pretty much chalking it up to something along the lines of "whadayou expect from crazy cultists." This story brings the tragedy to life with surprising in-depth portrayals of the followers, some survivors, and Jones himself.

For the young 'uns among us, this incident was the origin of the phrase "drinking the kool aid" to represent blindly following a leader or point of view with an inevitable, tragic end. As the writer observes in the closing lines of the book, the phrase does a disservice to those who were lead astray, to those who tried but failed to escape, and to those who overcame tremendous barrier to find their way to break loose.

This is one of those situations where you are tempted to say that it can't happen now, or it can't happen again. But the descriptions of the cult of personality fostered by a madman - Jones - are pretty much the same as what we're reading now about North Korea or what we sometimes conclude about batshit crazy politicians and their blind faith followers. It's really just a matter of degree.

Not light reading, not particularly pleasant reading, but I found it to be something of a page turner.