A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

There were worse punishments: when Tommy failed a class, Jones sentenced him to fifty whacks with the board of education, and Brian got fifty whacks for refusing to attend services in Los Angeles. It was humiliating, as a macho-posturing teenager, to be spanked in front of the entire congregation, to have a whimper of pain escape your mouth as a microphone was held to it.

In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a new church in Indianapolis called the Peoples Temple. Being charismatic and fully aware of how to influence people, he began preaching his idealistic beliefs and managed to quickly gather a good number of followers. Over the next twenty years, as the church moved from Indiana to California, and ultimately to its deathbed, Guyana, Jones would amass a huge number of followers, many willing to follow him to the ends of the earth, in the hopes of making the world take heed to their socialistic beliefs.  Their temple did make history in 1978, but for its role in the largest mass murder/suicide of Americans, when close to a thousand people either killed themselves or others, in answer to Jones request to commit 'revolutionary suicide'.

I had never known something this horrific had even happened. I ordinarily wouldn't have read this book because of its heavy leanings into religion, but the tragedy behind this book kept popping in my radar. If there's one thing I struggle to understand, its how people can stop trusting their instinct or listening to their inner person, and do something so outrageous as kill themselves. And this isn't one or two people we are talking about - the statistics are incredibly hard to believe. Moreover, this tragedy wasn't the result of a war or a religious faction taking control - instead these people had free will and the freedom to do as they wished. But, as Julia Scheeres shows in this book, A Thousand Lives, it's one thing for me to tell my friends that I'm not interested in joining them for something. It's a totally different thing and an impossibly hard one to walk out of a huge violence-capable mob, with your freedom and dreams intact. And that's why riots are hard to control.

A Thousand Lives chalks the intertwined histories of Peoples Temple, Jim Jones and many of its members. It is written based on the diaries, letters, and several tons of paperwork left behind by the people of Jonestown, recently declassified by the FBA. Some of these documents contain evocative dreams, hopes and wishes, while others are devoid of feeling and very robotic. From very early on, Jim Jones and his temple made for fascinating news material. Stuff about Jones' healings and miracles attracted people. These staged miracles did find him a lot of believers who couldn't wait for him to pull a magic trick on them and ease their sufferings. Jones also seemed to pull in more African Americans with his call for equal rights for all, at a time when America was going through an intense segregation period. And he even had some interesting but disgustingly cheap tactics to discourage people from leaving his temple. From the moment Jones had the eureka moment of taking his power a step beyond, his followers were doomed. And this was many years before the actual tragedy.

Scheeres shows how Jones started off as a perfectly reasonable, though idealistic person. It would be hard to refute his claims, especially by someone looking for some identity, something to belong to. His intentions were initially noble, he genuinely wanted to provide his people a place where they can all be equals and find in others a companion rather than an adversary. And despite what horror he cultivates in the end, it was hard not to see in him what people like to see in some leaders. But power is a dangerous thing in highly influential minds. And paranoia soon starts becoming him.

At the outset, the reader (at least me) doesn't know who manages to survive the tragedy. Although there is no single protagonist, some victims/survivors take the reins of the story occasionally. Some are highly religious people and have always been so, others are looking to find something to help overcome a recent tragedy in their lives, yet others are barely religious, but Jones' teachings made perfect sense to them and hence they decided to join the group. While most of the principal 'characters' in this book sounded sane to me, it is the ones who are always in the background but playing important roles in Jonestown that didn't sound so sane. Almost all the information on them are third-hand, which makes it hard to know exactly what they were thinking or why they felt compelled to partake in Jones' paranoia. Religion and socialism are the two major characters of this book, apart from the architect Jones himself. The author paints a clear picture of how even sane people like you and me ended up committing the unbelievable act.

Ultimately, I'm glad I read this book. Full suspension of belief in some religious people has always boggled my mind. Having been fiercely independent for most of my life, I find it hard to fathom someone else making a decision for me and deciding what I will do each day. There's usually a word for the kind of behavior described in this book - cult. The author makes it clear at the start that she wouldn't be using that word in the book, because it isn't the right word here. The book does justify her perspective (of course she wrote the book), and although I do think it's not too hard to write a story to make it look both cult-like and non-cult-like, I am inclined to agree with her here. There was nothing cultish in the behaviors of the people here, except for maybe their final action, which I'm still struggling to understand on so many levels.


I receive this book for free for review from the publisher, Free Press.

Anne Frank by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

Anne Frank is no stranger to us. We all know about how she hid with her family and four others in a secret annex in Netherlands during the infamous Holocaust, for two years. Whether or not we have actually read or loved her diary, none of us would deny that she went through a harrowing experience - just as million other Jews, victimized simply because of their faith. But in so many ways, Anne has become a symbol of that period chiefly because she was just fifteen when she died (murdered is what I like to say, even if it was disease that eventually claimed her), and also because she recorded her stay in the annex in her diary, which has already been read by millions.

That said, when I first read and loved Anne Frank's Diary two years back, the most common sentiment I heard expressed among those who didn't rate it highly was that the book felt too "immature". In other words, it read like any fifteen year old's diary - with all the typical squabbles, complaints, teenage infatuations/crushes/desires and worldly wisdoms. It seemed anticlimactic or too flat considering all the hype around it. I know many who tried to read it as any diary and eventually gave up. Most people loved it though, and what particularly struck me about the diary was that it was the manifestation of the dreams and desires of a girl (like any other girl), who never got to experience them, because of a man-made tragedy.

From that perspective, this graphic nonfiction is a really excellent accompaniment to the diary. Many have attested that when reading Anne's diary, it is really crucial to be in Anne's position - trapped for two years in an annex with just a single bathroom and not much privacy; a young girl at the cusp of those years when she is discovering herself, every single day - the age at which any girl or boy wants to experiment with a lot of things, including love and all the desires it invokes. Add another family to that annex, a family you now had to live with for two years, or rather for an unknown amount of time.

In Anne's diary, the events following their capture are chronicled in the Afterword section of the edition I read - who died and how, who survived. This book actually shows the events. Pictures can have a more powerful effect on the reader, and it did so in this case. Did you know that Anne and her sister died just weeks before rescue arrived at their camp? If she had been rescued, her diary might never have seen the light of day. But at least the world would not have missed having such a remarkable woman in its midst.

I felt that this book was really well-done. I read in an interview (whose link I can't find now) that the drawings of the characters, their attires and even the layouts of the annex strongly resemble the original characters and their hideout. Towards the end of the book when everyone is captured, they all look so different from their original selves - malnutrition, disease and fatigue eating out their muscle and body mass quickly. That's something I can never get used to - all those horrific images of the camps and their inmates. How could humans be so callous? I knew before I started, thanks to Ash, that this book is not a duplicate of Anne's diary. Instead, it covers a significant period before and after Anne starts writing her diary. That's really helpful because it puts Anne's diary in context much better than the diary itself does. Suddenly, the events seem much more harrowing, more scary, vivid and dangerous than how Anne says it. And after reading this graphic book, when I recollect some of the entries from Anne's diary, I see them in a much different light.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Review: A Secret Gift by Ted Gup

The Depression is one of the periods of this century that I know very little about. Other than reading about it in passing in some books and coming across the tons of references and side-jokes when the current recession hit, I knew almost nothing about it. Sure it was a hard time, a lot of people lost their jobs, but that's probably the limit of my knowledge. Ted Gup's book, A Secret Gift, is a memorial to his grandfather, Sam Stone, whose simple act of reaching out monetarily to a few families during the Christmas of 1933, made Christmas so much more merry for most of them.

Ted Gup accidentally came across a briefcase of letters, when his mother was clearing out a cupboard. Inside it, he found letters upon letters, and 150 canceled checks, in addition to other memorabilia. Reading these letters took him back seventy-five years to an unsolved mystery when a certain B. Virdot promised to send money to 50-75 families. His only condition was that they write to him about their true circumstances. Neither their identities nor his own would ever be revealed. Which would have been honored, until, of course, this briefcase was found.

I began to read through them, beginning with those that looked most legible. They spoke of hunger and cold, of endless searches for work, of dead ends and growing doubts. I was startled by their candor and disturbed by the grim terrain they described.

Ted Gup starts writing in this amazingly captivating manner, that I found hard to put down, even if at 3 in the morning. I hold him responsible for the two times I reported late at work, totally oversleeping on one occasion. Thank goodness it snowed that day. Partly my immersion was also due to my avid fascination with family history. It's immensely satisfying to know more about the people in your family, especially in roles you've never seen them in. Of course, you never want that knowledge to taint their reputation. Ted Gup's discovery only elevates his respect for his grandfather.

Here's another thing I probably assumed wrong about the Depression. My understanding was that most people probably recovered from the slump. Maybe it has to do with me being optimistic during the recession and trying to believe that everyone will come through and that there will be more jobs. Instead, what I learned was that there were many success stories, but there were plenty of not-so-bright futures too. Worse, the effects of the Depression even cascaded a few generations down. Ted Gup not only shared the letters with us, he also tracked down as many of the descendants of the original writers of the letters and gave us some of the what-happened-next as well. I was hooked!

To say that the stories were interesting to read about would be to pass a mistaken impression that they all had happy endings. Because many didn't . They could be plain depressing reading about on their own. Most take on bleak tones. The writers are too proud to publicly ask for help or charity. No one really wanted handouts. They all wanted a job. They might all have slammed doors in B. Virdot's face had he walked up to them and offered a five-dollar bill. But the anonymity of the offer gave them a chance to let out their troubles. What saved the letters from being dreary was they all showed triumph of the human spirit in them. What mostly won my respect was that every letter (at least every one that I remember) mentioned that if they were considered worthy of B. Virdot's check, then they would like to spend it on their family - usually the little children who would otherwise have a very gloomy Christmas.

The timeliness of this novel cannot be better appreciated. While not a Christmas novel at all, it evoked in me all the sentiments that Christmas stands for. The sacrifices, the love, the yearning to give kids a wonderful day even though there is no money for the same. What also surprised me was that most people down on their luck would usually think of saving any extra money they get or using them for emergency expenses such as rent or food. And yet, it warmed me that some just wanted to put a smile on the faces of their kids, make them feel great even if for just one day, by giving them gifts within their means. I can hardly fathom how they must have tried to decide what to do with that five dollar check. We can only guess and assume. As Ted Gup says, 

Only in hindsight could one be tempted to romaticize the Depression, to imagine it as a kind of ritualistic purification of the American soul.

Some of those who wrote to B. Virdot were very successful before "The Crash". Overnight, they became paupers. Others were always struggling. The Depression reduced them further. The first to suffer were usually the women. Almost automatically, women were laid off from work. This was an especially hard pill to swallow for those women who were the sole breadwinners of their family - the widowed or the divorced. It was interesting reading how every one of those situations share some form of common ground with Ted's grandfather, the benefactor. But at some point, the repetitive narration got a bit tiresome because of the frequent comparisons, especially since the reader had by then come to look for the similarities him/herself. It didn't help that there were quite a few typos that nagged at me. Ted Gup's book could have done with a better editing.

The second half of A Secret Gift slackens off slightly after the very promising start. Somehow that disappointed me, because once I figured out the whole mystery of why Ted's grandfather did what he did, everything became predictable. Don't mistake me - the stories were very powerful and engrossing, but the direction of the writing didn't hold as much captivation as it did in the initial half. Despite this, the book is very rich in history, with the town of Canton, Ohio, being a major character in itself. To someone like me, who is not very well-verse with the period around the Depression, it also served as a treasure trove of knowledge. In the end, what made this book click was reading about one man who sought to make a difference, however transient, and about the families who yearned to be part of that financial help, though most (probably all) would never have publicly asked for aid.

I received this book for free from the publisher via TLC Book Tours.