Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple
by: Deborah Layton
List Price: $15.95
Prices subject to change.
You Pay Only: $10.85
You Save: $5.10 (32%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Dewey Decimal Number: 289.9
EAN: 9780385489843
ISBN: 0385489846
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: November 09, 1999
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: November 09, 1999
Sales Rank: 76253
Studio: Anchor
Related Items:
- Dear People: Remembering Jonestown
- Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People
- Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple
- Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult
- Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)
- see more
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the 'truly unforgettable' (Kirkus Review) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.
From Waco to Heaven's Gate, the past decade has seen its share of cult tragedies. But none has been quite so dramatic or compelling as the Jonestown massacre of 1978, in which the Reverend Jim Jones and 913 of his disciples perished. Deborah Layton had been a member of the Peoples Temple for seven years when she departed for Jonestown, Guyana, the promised land nestled deep in the South American jungle. When she arrived, however, Layton saw that something was seriously wrong. Jones constantly spoke of a revolutionary mass suicide, and Layton knew only too well that he had enough control over the minds of the Jonestown residents to carry it out. But her pleas for help--and her sworn affidavit to the U.S. government--fell on skeptical ears. In this very personal account, Layton opens up the shadowy world of cults and shows how anyone can fall under their spell. Seductive Poison is both an unflinching historical document and a riveting story of intrigue, power, and murder.
Amazon.com Review:
Deborah Layton was, by her own account, a typical rebellious youth, with nothing in her dossier to indicate that she would eventually find herself in Jim Jones's People's Temple in Guyana, looking for a way out of the green hell that had become the People's Temple Agricultural Project. She barely escaped in June 1978. Within months, more than 900 people drank Jones's cyanide punch and committed 'revolutionary suicide' in the face of mounting stateside pressure on the cult, some of it prompted by Layton's own testimonials upon her safe return home. Her brother, Larry, also survived, and as one of the few left alive in Guyana became a scapegoat for Jones's crimes; he is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.
There is a simple naiveté at the root of Seductive Poison. Layton's own youthful innocence, foremost, but also the desire to trust another person, the need for belonging and meaning, which led so many perfectly normal Americans to place their faith in a suicidal madman. Far from confirming the simplistically monstrous Jones of the public imagination, Layton paints the man as a dark, twisted shaman, by turns soothing, then suddenly malevolent and petty, with a hugely sadistic streak that belied his perfectly coifed hair, expensive suits, and impressive political connections. The scenes in which she describes her escape and flight to safety are wrenching, her last-minute conversation with Jones and his seductive appeal for her to return home to Jonestown are chilling, and her fear and indecision are still palpable on the printed page. For Layton to recount tales this personal and horrifying must have been tremendously difficult. For her to lift those recollections above the bargain-basement freak-show reputation the People's Temple has achieved in the popular imagination and depict them with the power of great tragedy is nothing but extraordinary. --Tjames Madison
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- Should have ended 200 pages earlier!I picked up this book because of the top reviews but found that after about 200 pages it got very ... Read More
Rating:
- Great bookA truly good read that will open your eyes and make you think about humanity and the human mind. Very ... Read More
Rating:
- Compelling but very, very sad. A MUST read!I read this book after hearing about it in an article recently, given the anniversary of the horrible ... Read More
Rating:
- Really?I bought this book after watching the "Witness to Jonestown" documentary on MSNBC a few weeks ago. Layton ... Read More
Rating:
- MADNESS IN THE JUNGLEI have been fascinated with the Jonestown story ever since the first reports of the massacre emerged in '78. ... Read More
More Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple Reviews
Browse for similar items by category:
- Qualifying Textbooks - Custom Stores - Specialty Stores - Books - General AAS
- Leaders & Notable People - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Religious
- Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Memoirs
- Specific Groups - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - General
- Specific Groups - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - General AAS
Copyright ©2003, Mark Carey.