Raven (book)
Front cover
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| Author | Tim Reiterman with John Jacobs |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject |
Destructive cults Mass suicide |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Publisher | E. P. Dutton |
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Publication date
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October 1, 1982 |
| Media type | Hardback (first ed.) |
| Pages | 622 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 7837655 |
| 289.9 19 | |
| LC Class | BP605.P46 R44 1982 |
Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People details the life and ultimate demise of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. Written by journalist Tim Reiterman, the book reviews the history of the Peoples Temple. The book includes numerous interviews, audio tapes and documents among its hundreds of sources.
In addition to covering the Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple in articles in the San Francisco Examiner, Reiterman also accompanied Congressman Leo Ryan on his November 1978 investigative trip to Jonestown. While Reiterman was shot, he survived the Peoples Temple's attack on Ryan's delegation at an airstrip in Guyana.
During the course of his research for the book, Reiterman traveled to Indiana and visited locations where Jim Jones grew up and conducted interviews with local residents who knew him.
The book describes the events that occurred in Jonestown, Guyana, where over 900 people lost their lives, which constituted the largest loss of American civilian life (other than due to natural disasters) in United States history until the events of September 11, 2001. The book further describes the investigation and death of Congressman Ryan.
In 1983, Raven was recognized with the Thomas Thompson PEN Award for nonfiction. Marshall Kilduff of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote highly of the book and recommended it in a 2007 summer reading list: "This stands as the definitive history of Jim Jones and his bizarre Peoples Temple." Rob Morse of the San Francisco Examiner wrote: "The book is so definitive, it's tough going. It has no cheap thrills, just depressing shivers." In a review for the Associated Press, Lisa Levitt Ryckman called the book "the most comprehensive of the dozen written since Jones directed his followers in an orgy of suicide and murder", and in a subsequent article about Jonestown reiterated her position, and referred to the book as the "definitive book on Jones and Peoples Temple".
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