Carolyn Layton w/ Laura Elizabeth Woollett

*Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of mass murder and suicide*

Carolyn Layton had an idyllic childhood. Daughter of a socially progressive Methodist minister father and peace activist mother, she grew up believing passionately in social justice and racial equality. After marrying Larry Layton, a conscientious objector, the two began a new life together, a life founded on their shared principles of equality, freedom and social progress. Then they found an incredible new church, that seemed to share and espouse the values they held most dear: The People's Temple. As Carolyn became progressively more involved with the organisation and its charismatic leader, Jim Jones, she started to change, and it wasn't for the better.

Join us as we chat to Laura Elizabeth Woollett, author of Beautiful Revolutionary, about how Carolyn became implicated in the greatest loss of American life until September 11, and the complexities of how we remember the mistress of Jim Jones.

If you want more, be sure to pick up a copy of Beautiful Revolutionary wherever you buy good books! We also highly recommend The Love of a Bad Man, her short story collection imagining the lives of the girlfriends, wives and mistresses of history's worst men.

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