Beautiful Revolutionary
Overview
The thrilling new novel, inspired by the events at Jonestown in the 1970s.
It’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself. Minister’s daughter. Atheist. Independent woman. Frustrated wife. Bitch with a bleeding heart.
Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny’s passive ways — and anxious for a saviour. Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a new revolutionary church …
Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. It follows Evelyn as she is pulled into Jones’s orbit — an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Paperback
- 234mm x 153mm
- 416 pages
- 9781911617594
- GBP£12.99
- 14 February 2019
- World English Language
Awards
- Shortlisted for the 2019 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
- Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction
Praise
‘Woollett has wisely chosen to forgo the fetishism of death and Jim Jones that is so often the focus of this tragedy. With Beautiful Revolutionary, Woollett has created an utterly intoxicating portrait of the lives of those seeking to build something new in a world that seemed to be losing its mind. Although we know what awaits us, Woollett masterfully weaves a suspenseful and complex story about people — of their dreams, beliefs, ideals, and lives all coming to a horrific end — in a way that is uniquely hers. Woollett is electric.’
‘Laura Woollett’s imaginative retelling of the Jonestown tragedy does what only fiction can do — endows Jim Jones and his inner circle with a sense of humanity. She formulates answers to unknowable questions — how could otherwise sane people be pulled into Jones’s web of evil? What happened that last, tragic day? A lyrical and sharply rendered tale of innocence lost and ideals betrayed.’
About the Author
Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an author and critic based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man, was published in 2016, followed by the novels Beautiful Revolutionary (2018), The Newcomer (2021), and West Girls (2023). Her works have been listed for numerous awards, including the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. In 2025, she was a writer-in-residence at the Cité Internationale Des Arts in Paris. Hell Days (2026) is her nonfiction debut.






