Bookforum review of Stories from Jonestown

"For perhaps the first time, we hear the voices of the Temple instead of seeing the casualties."

fondakowski_stories cover[EXCERPT]

This is a book that seeks to set the record straight about the culture and politics of Peoples Temple, and as such is a crucial addition to the Jonestown canon. For perhaps the first time, we hear the voices of the Temple instead of seeing the casualties. We get an indelible sense of the believers' youth and optimism, along with the vulnerability that drove them into the arms of the wilderness. Not all of them killed themselves willingly, but all of them gambled on Jones's promise of a better life. They gambled on a future where all they had sacrificed would mean something to the world. The tragic irony is that it did.

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Published in: Bookforum
By: Jeremy Lybarger