Book Review: Paradise Undone

About the Book

Imagine a community full of rainbow families where everyone comes together in the spirit of equality and fraternal love.

Shy pastor’s daughter Marceline and her new husband Jim Jones found Peoples Temple in the face of rampant hostility and aggression in 1950s segregated AmeriKKKa.

They give hope to the poor, the miserable, the alienated and disenfranchised of all colors, and build a commune in the jungle of British Guyana.

But this Eden too has its serpent. One who is also jealous of God, and where he goes, everyone must follow, even to the grave.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Undone-Jonestown-Annie-Dawid-ebook/dp/B0CKHSZX7X/

My Review

I was 14 years old in 1978, when the Reverend Jim Jones ordered the members of his congregation to drink a poisonous mixture and follow him to their deaths. He ordered them to give the same mixture to their children, and they blindly followed after him. I remember hearing about it on the news, and as a teenager, I couldn’t understand how something like this could happen. I wondered why a holy man would sacrifice his flock; why someone would follow aan like that, even when they had to realize what the results would be. What makes a man like Jones? Why would he lead those he claimed to love down a road to death? And why would all those people follow him blindly down that road? Were they deceived? Did they go willingly?

It bothered me, but time went on and other sensational events replaced it as the top story, and I didn’t think too much about it. Every once in awhile it would be mentioned on the news, such as when Waco was compared to Jonestown, and I’d think about it then, and it still bothered me. I still didn’t understand. And there was a part of me that needed to understand.

So when Annie Dawid asked me to review her novel about Jonestown, Paradise Undone, I jumped at the opportunity. Dawid has been working on this book since the event occured, so I knew it had been thoroughly researched, because I reviewed her collection of essays, Put Off My Sackcloth Essays, back in 2022. Her need to understand, to make some kind of sense of this horrendous event, was akin to my own, except hers drove her to act. And to make her offer even sweeter, she offered to send me a print copy. Yes please.

In Paradise Undone, by Annie Dawid, the author has written fictional accounts of a factual event. Her characters were all real people, although some of the names have been changed. Dawid offers up several perspectives of the event, sprinkled with actual quotes made by Jim Jones. She offers a glimpse into the minds of those involved, and their stories are told based on the facts that she uncovered through decades of research.

The plot for this story was written back in 1978, and the author doesn’t veer from known facts, all though she sets the records straight in some respects. Much of the tale she weaves is spun from actual Jonestown documents. Dawid presents the events through the eyes of those that were there or were members of The People’s Temple, and the aftereffects of this unthinkable event.

It is a sad and tragic tale, and there are no happy endings. We all know how the story ended. 918 people dead in the jungle of Guyana. But Dawid has offered us a glimpse into the humanity of the situation, enabling us to see that there were real people involved, people who loved and had hopes and dreams, although perhaps misguided.

I found myself relating to the character of Marceleine Jones, who hid behind behind a veil of feined ignorance as events spiraled out of control as a means of denying culpability. I think it is a common reaction of many women to ignore the traits in their partners which they otherwise could not tolerate in order to maintain the status quo and hold onto the lives that they’ve built for themselves. Marceleine ignored the intolerable until it had spiraled out of her control. The realization of what she’d allowed to happen and her inability to stop it was enough to motivate her drink the Fla-Vor-Aid.

I hope that through her research, Annie Dawid found the answers she was searching for. And me? Well, I’m still in awe that a catastrophic event such as this could occur. Although I’m not sure why it shocks me so much, when madmen are shooting up schools, theaters, and churches, or bombing public events so often that it has nearly become a part of normal life for many. But there is something even more disturbing about Jonestown for me, because Jim Jones gained the trust of his flock and then turned that trust against them. That, in itself, amplifies his crimes tenfold above the shooters of Columbine, the Aurora movie theater killer, the Boston Marathon bomber, with their random acts of violence.

Dawid has done her research and recreated this horrific event for us in stunning vividness. I give Paradise Undone five quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.