“Koresh: The True story of David Koresh and the Tragedy at Waco,” by Stephan Talty (Mariner Books)
Thirty years ago, on April 19, 1993, after a 51-day siege by federal agents, the Branch Davidian complex in Waco erupted in flames, leading to the deaths of 76 people.
The murky circumstances and conflicting accounts about the siege and how it ended have led to decades of lore and misinformation. Several projects timed around the 30th anniversary aim to revisit the events of the siege, including a Netflix documentary “Waco: American Apocolypse” and a Showtime dramatized series “Waco: The Aftermath.” In his book, Talty goes further back to trace the Branch Davidian movement from the beginning and examine the life of Koresh himself.
Born Vernon Wayne Howell in 1959, Koresh was an unhappy and abused child who became obsessed with the bible and thought he heard the voice of God. As an adult, he increasingly took control of an existing sect of the Seventh Day Adventists called the Branch Davidians and preached about the coming end times, collecting plenty of teenage “wives” along the way. As the group began amassing large amounts of weapons, they caught the attention of federal authorities, leading to the eventual showdown.
Talty writes in an “immersive nonfiction” style that tells the story partly through the point of view of what Koresh might have been thinking. Drawing from new interviews with people both inside and outside of Waco during the siege and plenty of archival material, Talty paints a detailed picture of what led to the deadly siege, one of the darkest chapters in American history.
