Word: guyana
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...Guyana Horror...
After the first wave of social scientists, explaining how such cults can mesmerize their followers, come social scientists examining the degree of morbidity in press and public interest. More than a difference in numbers divides the killings in San Francisco and the 900 deaths in Guyana. Two public officials murdered by a disappointed office seeker may not be a common occurrence, but it is a credible one. Guyana needed more than reporters' descriptive words to establish the truth for readers. Only the gruesome photographs brought confirming proof of the astonishing numbers of the dead...
...books are divisible into two classes," noted John Ruskin in 1865, "the books of the hour, and the books of all time." He would have been surprised to find his declaration taken literally. Only eleven days after the ghastly events in Guyana had been disclosed to the world, two paperbacks with $2.50 price tags hit the stands: Bantam's The Suicide Cult and Berkley's Guyana Massacre. Produced by teams of journalists, the "instant" books, as they are known in the trade, feature photographs, background chapters on the Peoples Temple and firsthand accounts by reporters who had accompanied...
...quickies" merely commercial ventures for publishers, or do they represent responsible efforts to record and interpret dramatic world events? Profits, it so happens, are likely to be marginal, given the extra shipping, printing and overtime costs that result from speeding up production. In the case of Bantam's Guyana special, these costs amounted to a high five figures. A majority of instant books break even, but some-notably The President's Trip to China and The White House Transcripts-were financial failures, with returns as high as 60%. The Pentagon Papers was their biggest success, with 1.66 million...
Considering the journalistic haste with which they were assembled, Guyana Massacre and The Suicide Cult are solid documentaries. "It isn't War and Peace," admits Harwood, co-author of the Berkley book. Krause and his co-authors offer more sophisticated speculation about the psychological motives for Jonestown. One of the chapters is entitled "Scoop," a reference to Evelyn Waugh's satiric novel about journalists who cover an elusive crisis in a backward country. "A friend told me I would never write a book without a gun to my head," said Krause. Perhaps more editors and publishers should...