{"id":911,"date":"2018-12-31T14:37:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=911"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:37:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:37:36","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=911","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Dromgoole’s Texas Reads column appears weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

4.23.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Texas writer explores how Jonestown tragedy happened<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>How could more than 900 people line up<\/span> and drink a poisoned punch, knowing they would die?<\/p>\n

In The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Simon & Schuster, $28 hardcover), Fort Worth author Jeff Guinn<\/span> takes an in-depth look at the people and events leading up to the mass suicide, or massacre, in the South American jungle village of Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978.<\/p>\n

Not everyone who drank the punch did it willingly, Guinn points out. About 300 of the victims were children and another 300 or so were elderly. A few escaped the compound before and during the mass poisoning, which was recorded on audiotape. At one point, Jones could be heard trying to convince his screaming wife, Marceline, to drink the poison. After the poisonings, Jones either shot himself or had someone do it.<\/p>\n

The Jonestown story revolves around James Warren \u201cJim\u201d Jones and the Peoples Temple church that he founded and led, first in Indiana, then California, and finally Guyana.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim Jones was undeniably a man of great gifts,\u201d Guinn writes, \u201cand one who, for much of his life and ministry, achieved admirable results on behalf of the downtrodden. Yet he was also a demagogue who ultimately betrayed his followers whether he always intended to or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guinn shows how Jones built his church into a cult and gained political influence by fighting racism, injustice, and inequality. An avowed socialist and Marxist, Jones grew increasingly paranoid in his long, ranting sermons, warning his parishioners of looming concentration camps, nuclear holocaust, and other envisioned disasters.<\/p>\n

In Guyana, he promised them, they would build an idealistic agricultural ministry that would help feed hungry people throughout South America. Instead, Guinn notes, the members who followed him there found themselves living in an overcrowded jungle village where they were overworked, underfed, and subjected to nightly \u201csermons\u201d that would go on for hours, predicting \u201cimminent slaughter by U.S. government agents, Guyanese soldiers, and mercenaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the jungle experiment floundered, Jones tried unsuccessfully to get permission from Russia to move his cult there.<\/p>\n

The fatal ending came on Saturday, Nov. 18, 1978. Congressman Leo Ryan had been to Jonestown to investigate whether cult members were being held against their will. As he and his entourage were boarding a plane to leave at a nearby airstrip, Jones\u2019s henchmen gunned down Ryan and four others and wounded three more.<\/p>\n

In the compound, Jones told his followers, \u201cWe are not committing suicide. It\u2019s a revolutionary act. We can\u2019t go back. They won\u2019t leave us alone. They\u2019re now going back to tell more lies, which means more congressmen. And there\u2019s no way, no way we can survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Guinn, author of twenty books ranging from a biography of notorious murderer Charles Manson to a fictional autobiography of Santa Claus, has been named the A.C. Greene Award winner for 2017. He will be honored at the West Texas Book Festival in September, in Abilene.<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is West Texas Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span>Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 4.23.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Texas writer explores how Jonestown tragedy happened How could more than 900 people line up and drink a poisoned punch, knowing they would die? In The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (Simon & Schuster, $28 hardcover), Fort Worth author Jeff Guinn takes an in-depth look at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}