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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 1

by John Berendt
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/10/2009
5/5 Rating 1 Review

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Genteel society ladies who compare notes on their husbands' suicides. A hilariously foul-mouthed black drag queen. A voodoo priestess who works her roots in the graveyard at midnight. A morose inventor who owns a bottle of poison powerful enough to kill everyone in town. A prominent antiques dealer who hangs a Nazi flag from his window to disrupt the shooting of a movie. And a redneck gigolo whose conquests describe him as a 'walking streak of sex'.



These are some of the real residents of Savannah, Georgia, a city whose eccentric mores are unerringly observed - and whose dirty linen is gleefully aired - in this utterly irresistible book. At once a true-crime murder story and a hugely entertaining and deliciously perverse travelogue, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is as bracing and intoxicating as half-a-dozen mint juleps.
ISBN:
9780340992852
9780340992852
Category:
True crime
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-10-2009
Publisher:
Hodder & Stoughton
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
400
Dimensions (mm):
197x168x27mm
Weight:
0.28kg

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Reviews

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1 Review

I was very keen to get into this book, once I started listening to a podcast with the author, where it was introduced as “the most popular true crime novel on the market, second only to ‘in cold blood’”. With an introduction like that, I had to pause my podcast and get a hardcopy of this book for my collection!

“Midnight in the garden of good and evil” felt more like a sociological study of a certain town, in a certain crossroads in its existence, rather than a criminological book detailing a crime and the whodunnits and whys.

Our narrator, John Berendt, has a Gatsby like telling of the wonderful lives of the rich (both monetary and of personality) characters that he interacts with during his time in Savannah. There’s an element of awe and wonder when he recounts parties, posessions and people who invite him in to their wealthy and eccentric pastimes. Beginning as an outsider who is very quickly taken under the city’s wing (there’s that Savannahan hospitality we have all heard so much about!), John becomes instrumental in the lives of the locals, and becomes a given in the town.

The crime in question is almost a happened-upon event in the otherwise ontological capturing of Savannah’s social elite and customs. Indeed, this event does not occur until halfway through the book, and if you’re looking for crime, it was nearly barren in this book!

That is not to say that the book does not have it’s merits. Berendt is a wonderful storyteller, and the vignettes of the people he meets are worthwhile on their own, its just with the expectation of a “true crime” novel, one does feel a little let down by the lack of criminal happenings in the book.

The most interesting aspects of the book is in it’s ability to capture nuances of social life and custom that might have otherwise been missed, or not remembered, by a community. There are interesting chapters speaking of clubs and activities that Savannah locals went about at the time, and whilst I’m sure that these days, Savannah would be like any other town in America, it’s nice to see that it held onto its charm and peculiarities for as long as possible.

Well worth reading, for there are many gems in this book to delight you (special mention goes out to ‘The Lady Chablis”, but if you’re expecting a breakdown of a crime in the detail that came from “in cold blood”, the book will not deliver what you’re after.

Contains Spoilers No
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