Death of a Cult Family: Jim Jones

Days of Tragedy

by Sue L. Hamilton

A brief biographical account of Jones and a description of his church and the mass suicide which he inspired.

Genres: Nonfiction

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Dawn]

This book is part of a series called "Days of Tragedy." These short books, now out of print, are for grade school children. Most of the references used for this volume are magazines of the time, not all of which are factually accurate. The second page of text says Jim Jones wore a "bright white suit." No, he was never known to wear a white suit. The accompanying photo shows him wearing a white choir robe, which is something he commonly did. A minor error, perhaps, but I found several other errors in this short book. It reports that there were three shooters at the Port Kaituma airstrip---no, there were twelve, according to the FBI indictments. The few seconds of news footage taken during the incident shows at least six men with guns.

I was disappointed in this book. The photos are commonly found on the Internet and in other books, and the factual errors are annoying. I wouldn't recommend it even for Peoples Temple completists.