Title: The Cult Next Door
Subtitle: Jim Jones and the Tragedy of Jonestown
Description: On November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred people died in a jungle clearing in Guyana. For decades, “Jonestown” has been reduced to a punchline and a myth. *The Cult Next Door* restores the lost humanity behind the headline—tracing how a neighborhood church that fed the hungry and integrated its pews became a closed world where fear wore the mask of love.

Beginning in a modest Indianapolis living room, Jim Jones built a ministry on food pantries, free clinics, and the radical promise that everyone belonged. As the Peoples Temple moved to California—and finally into the Guyanese interior—acts of care hardened into instruments of control: public confessions, midnight “loyalty” drills, rehearsed suicides, and the slow replacement of family with “Father.” Through vivid, composite viewpoints and deeply researched history, this book follows parishioners, mothers, children, and defectors; the Concerned Relatives who refused to let them vanish; and Congressman Leo Ryan, whose fatal visit shattered the illusion of paradise.

Refusing sensationalism, *The Cult Next Door* reveals the mechanisms that turned hope into obedience and devotion into death—and the ordinary longings that drew people in: dignity, safety, purpose, home. It is both a gripping narrative and a clear-eyed cautionary tale about charisma, community, and the fragile line between care and control.

For readers of narrative history and true crime who care about why people believe—and how to keep belief from becoming a cage.

A church that promised belonging became a world that demanded everything; *The Cult Next Door* shows how hope was weaponized—and at what cost.
Places: Jonestown (Guyana)
People: Jim Jones (1931-1978)