Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt | Great

books:

Midnight in the Ga...

	Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil John Berendt Vintage, 1999 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 489 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981.  Was it murder or self-defense?  For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.  John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.  Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight.  These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.  Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.

for more information click here

Great Read

Just read the book - you can't help but enjoy the characters and the irony.

Great

This is a great book. It's a truly engaging story. For all those who enjoyed it, I just read another book that is similar in certain ways and also very evocative and compelling - Saving Savannah. What I found particularly interesting was reading both and then thinking about some of the parallels and divergances that emerge. Savannah during the Civil War never ceases to be a fascinating topic...!

enjoyed it immensley

This is a good, fast, enjoyable read, filled with a good mix of history, humor and good old-fashioned storytelling.

for more information click here

Fine read, but what the fuss about?

I enjoyed "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," John Berendt's 1999 blockbuster about the underside of Savannah's genteel lifestyle. But though I enjoyed the story and the characters, I'm not entirely sure why it took off as it did to top the NYT Bestseller list for 200 weeks.

The story is lots of fun and kept me engaged till the end. The story is narrated by a New York journalist hoping to write a story about Savannah. In the first third of the book, he manages to stumble across just about every Southern type, from dueling renovators of old buildings to drag queens, to good ol' boys, to voodoo priestesses and everyone else in between. The collection of roustabouts and ragamuffins is endearing and mostly harmless. They inhabit a dreamy world of quaint customs, elaborate parties, petty rivalries and jealousies, and grand old Southern houses. Then suddenly, a character is found dead in the elegant study of another. The rest of the book traces the intricacies of the trials related to the death.

I was less impressed than some by Berendt's handling of the trials. He breezed through these, leaving out details in one in order to use them for shock value in another. His use of Chablis, the memorable drag queen, seemed added more as comic effect than anything else. Take her out of the book and the plot would not have suffered an iota -- I am *serious*, child!. One wonders whether the fascination for readers is the novelty that the book purportedly features real Savannah houses and landmarks.

"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is a fun read that probably won't hold up as a classic. Enjoy it anyway.

for more information click here