While researching another book, Julia Scheeres, the author of the memoir Jesus Land, learned that the FBI had recently released 50,000 pages of documents that agents found in Jonestown, everything from shipping manifests to notes to Jim Jones from residents pleading with him to let them go home.

A Thousand Lives focuses on five people: Edith Roller, Stanley Clayton, Hyacinth Thrash and Jim and Tommy Bogue.

Using diaries and other primary sources as well as hundreds of hours of interviews, Scheeres presents a heart-breaking portrait of belief, survival and loss in this idyllic community.

"[2] The Los Angeles Times Book Review wrote, "Scheeres convincingly portrays the members of this community as victims, not fools.

It's hard to imagine how people might be so browbeaten, afraid and misled that they would bring about their own deaths—but Scheeres has made that terrifying story believable and human.