Book: A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

Narrated By: Robin Miles

Run Time: 10 hours, 53 minutes

How I Got It: Audiobook, via Audible

Genre: Non-fiction: Sociology, Psychology

Find out more: Goodreads|Barnes And Noble|Amazon|Julia Scheeres

Goodreads.com Summary: They left America for the jungles of Guyana to start a better life. Yet what started as a Utopian dream soon devolved into a terrifying work camp run by a madman, ending in the mass murder-suicide of 914 members in November 1978. 

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times best-selling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons – some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones’ drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community. 

For this groundbreaking book, Scheeres examined more than 50,000 pages of newly released documents that the FBI collected from the camp after the massacre – including diaries, crop reports, and letters that were never sent home – as well as hundreds of audiotapes of Jones addressing his group. 

Scheeres’s own experience at a religious boot camp in the Dominican Republic, detailed in her unforgettable debut memoir Jesus Land, gives her unique insight into this chilling tale. 

Haunting and vividly written, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, searing loss.

A Thousand Lives was really interesting.  I had a general idea of what happened at Jonestown, but this was a really interesting and personal look at what it was like for some of the people who survived Jonestown.  You get a great look at the kind of people who were drawn to Jim Jones, and how he went from a charismatic guy on a corner, to someone who was addicted to drugs and seemed paranoid.

You see people who were so full of hope at the beginning, and so full of despair at the end.  I liked that you see how long it took for People’s Temple to go from one end of the spectrum to the other.  You see why they stayed loyal to him, even when they didn’t want to, and that the signs of his own instability were there long before the group committed mass suicide. You see everyone from well-educated people to people who were in prison who would follow him to the ends of the earth.

I definitely got the sense that Scheeres really identified with the members of People’s Temple.  You really feel for them at times, and she does do a great job with showing why people didn’t try to leave.  At the same time, though, it focused more on the people in Jonestown and not enough on Jim Jones.  I would have liked more background on him.  It definitely leans towards portraying him in a negative light.  I get why, but more of his childhood, and more about him would have been nice.

It does jump around a lot in terms of timeline, and keeping track of people was somewhat difficult, which made it a little harder to keep track of what was going on.

As far as the narration goes, Robin Miles did a great job narrating.

Final thoughts: I liked it, and thought it was an interesting look at Jonestown.  It gets a 3 out of 5.