Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown by Candace Fleming can sometimes be a bit slow in the pacing, sometimes a smidgen romantically written, sometimes sad, sometimes scary, sometimes heart pounding, but always interesting. For me, the “small details” (such as it wasn’t Kool-Aid, the ingreediants used for the mixture were less than $9 then, Jones’ “rainbow family,”) were in some ways more interesting than the overall picture and that was fascinating. The “human” side of things (even with Jones himself) comes out from history. We learn how an emotionally abused boy would build up a congregation of thousands in California and Guyana of people from all walks of life, ages and races. We see how he would preach good things (inclusion, equality), do good things (helped foster children, seniors, housing), but later bring in socialism (just not the good parts, as he was a big fan of a guy named Adolph from Germany), and stepped away from “the word of God” to become God. And power corrupts, and Jones’ power corrupted absolutely. And in the meantime, hopefully Flemming has shown us what we need to know of the past so we do not repeat it again. And yet, a history I only knew from “jokes” or “boogie man in the closet hush hush tales,” is happening again. So how do seemingly intelligent people fall for the Big Con? Fleming shows us that and more.
Now, I have no idea why I picked up this book. I can not find it on any of the lists I have been using for inspiration for reading outside my wheelhouse. I know I never said, “Gee, Jonestown sounds like a fun read. Let’s find a book about it!” And even browsing publisher titles from publishers I have recently read, still doesn’t ring any bells. With that said, I found it, I read it and I thought it was a physically easy read, but, obviously, was not an easy read emotionally.
My first thought about the audience was, “It must be “new adult” or an adult book that was not too technical, or bogged down in fancy language or text forms. But when looking into the age ranges it is marketed for young adults. Who thinks Jonestown is a good subject for teens? I don’t know if Fleming hopes that older teens (and adults) will read it and realize it is easy to be seduced into something that started out good but became dangerous, or they just want people to learn about a piece of relatively unknown history. Or a combination. Either way, it is a book that should be read.
Unless you are superstitious. Thankfully I am not. (Okay, I’m “stious” but not superstitious). I mean there were two really odd coincidences that happened while reading. It took longer than usual to get through things as there is a lot of build up, and it’s not easy to digest all at once, so I stopped and read another book. It was a Stephen King book that was not about Jonestown, but mentions it. And then on November 11, 2025 I was on the edge of maybe not finishing and flipped ahead to a page that said November 18, 1978. I read the page and learned that was the day it all ended. I took that as a sign to finish. And it was good I did. There was so much I did not know about the events. I thought I knew what was going to happen, I thought I knew the mindset of people, but still I was wondering how we got the “inside track” to things if all the followers died (SPOILER: they didn’t). What I learned opened up a chapter of history that was not that long ago (less than 50 years have passed since that day) and one that I don’t know how I feel about, but that is a good thing as this is a To Think book.
Photographs included.