1 August 2025 DEATH IN THE JUNGLE: MURDER, BETRAYAL, AND THE LOST DREAM OF JONESTOWN by Candace Fleming, Penguin Random House/Anne Schwartz Books, April 2025, 368p., ISBN: 978-0-593-48006-9

“Just say a word and the boys will be right there

With claws at your back to send a chill through the night air

Is it so frightening to have me at your shoulder?

Thunder and lightning couldn't be bolder

I'll write on your tombstone, I thank you for dinner

This game that we animals play is a winner”

– Jethro Tull, “Bungle in the Jungle” (1974)

“Temple membership spread through the families living in Redwood Valley and beyond. By the end of 1968–a little more than three years after the original group had moved west–close to two hundred people called themselves members. 

As in Indianapolis, the majority of Temple members (75 percent) were poor and disenfranchised African Americans–a reflection of the alienation they felt within U.S. society. In the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination,as well as those of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy, they found themselves wondering how to live Dr. King’s dream. Would they ever be judged solely by their character instead of their skin color? Peoples Temple seemed to offer a solution.

Another group began joining the Temple around this time, too: people in their twenties and thirties, some white, some Black, some college-educated, some dropouts. Many sprang from California’s counterculture. In the summer of 1967, tens of thousands of young adults had headed to San Francisco with a shared desire for peace and freedom.The American dream cherished by their parents was no longer a goal for them. They rejected consumerism, advocated peace, and demanded social reform. Some protested the Vietnam War. Others fought for civil rights and women’s rights. Most were searching for meaning, purpose, and a sense of community. Once, they would have joined organized religion as their parents had, but conventional faith no longer satisfied. They were interested in the metaphysical, the spiritual. Some studied Eastern religions. ‘We had a saying,’ recalled one activist who joined Peoples Temple. ‘One person can only whisper. You need to be in a group to stand strong.’

Many others who joined the church were going through life transitions–moving to a new town, returning from military service, losing a job, getting a divorce, battling addiction, and so on. They were searching for security, stability, and a helping hand. The Temple offered all this and more.

Jones understood these varied reasons, and like a chameleon, he ‘appealed to anyone on any level at any time,’ recalled one former member. To some, like Hyacinth Thrash, he spoke the language of a Pentecostal preacher. To others, like the Laytons, he references political theory and metaphysics. ‘His vocabulary could change quickly from…backwood and homey to being quite intellectual,’ recalled another former member. He drew on these people’s deep yearning for some kind of alternative life…and exploited it.”

In DEATH IN THE JUNGLE, standout young people’s nonfiction writer Candace Fleming probes the life and death of Jim Jones.  In 1978, Jones instigated and oversaw the suicide/murder of more than 900 children and adults, mostly Peoples Temple members and their families, who had followed Jones from California to a settlement in the jungles in Guyana. 

“But it was the preacher who transfixed Jimmy–his shiny satin robe, his booming voice and fiery words.”

Beginning with his early childhood of neglect, as he wandered his Indiana hometown unsupervised, dirty, and unfed, we learn how he was entranced by the ability of preachers (and Adolf Hitler) to put on a performance and hold a crowd’s attention. We see how he had a knack for memorizing names, situations, and extensive passages of scripture. He was wowed by Pentecostal demonstrations of devotion “in which people leaped spontaneously to their feet, burst into song, danced ecstatically, or fell shaking to the floor.”

Jim Jones, who eventually came to embrace his mother’s long-held atheist philosophy, and to tout himself as a god, seems on some level to have been supportive of positive movements like civil rights and socialism, peace and love. But the guy was a nut job–a deadly nut job who progressively went further and further off the rails. Thus, DEATH IN THE JUNGLE is an important life-and-death cautionary tale for tweens and teens about cults and cult leaders.

“Without warning, four aides would appear at a member’s home or workplace and cheerfully inform the person that it was time to go. Immediately. That day. That minute. While one aide helped the member pack, a second watched the phone to prevent them from making any calls, and a third aide comforted those being left behind. The fourth aide was there to deal with anyone who didn’t want to go. Some members were eager to move to Guyana. But many balked at going–they didn’t want to move away forever. Aides told them they could just go for a visit. Stay a few weeks, they said. If you don’t like it, you can come back. 

This was a lie, of course. No one would be allowed to return.”

Author Candace Fleming immersed herself in a virtual mountain of primary source materials relating to Jones and Peoples Temple. (The backmatter includes details on accessing online materials.) She also interviewed survivors including Jones’ biological son. 

What makes DEATH IN THE JUNGLE shine so brightly is Fleming’s keen ability to process this wealth of information and craft a factual, repeatedly jaw-dropping, intense, (and, undoubtedly, soon-to-be-award-winning) nonfiction tale that’ll grab young readers and never ever let up. 

Gruesome, horrifying, and eye-opening, exposure to DEATH IN THE JUNGLE will one day undoubtedly save the life of some middle schooler or high schooler who might otherwise grow up to get suckered into following a latter-day Jim Jones. Do not miss it!

Richie Partington, MLIS

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