Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Book - Author Interview (1997)

• published: 16 Dec 2014
• views: 1074

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction work by John Berendt. Published in 1994, the book was Berendt's first, and became a The New York Times bestseller for 216 weeks following its debut and still, to this day, the longest standing best seller of the Times. The book was subsequently made into a 1997 movie, directed by Clint Eastwood and based loosely on Berendt's story. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospheric and Southern Gothic in tone, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities in and around the city of Savannah, Georgia. The action that serves as a catalyst in the book is the killing of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute (characterized as "a good time not yet had by all") by respected antiques dealer Jim Williams. This results in four murder trials, with the final one ending in acquittal after the judge finally agreed to move the case away from the Savannah jury pool. The book characterizes the killing as the result of a lovers' quarrel, not a pre-meditated murder. The death occurred in Williams' home, which was originally built by an ancestor of songwriter and Savannah native Johnny Mercer, West Point graduate and US Army and CSA Colonel Hugh Mercer (whose grandfather was Hugh Mercer of Pennsylvania, hero of the Battle of Trenton and adjutant to General George Washington of the Continental Army). The book also highlights many other notable Savannah residents, most notably The Lady Chablis, preoperative transsexual woman and local drag queen and entertainer. Chablis provides both a Greek chorus of sorts as well as a light-hearted contrast to the more serious action. The book's plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a "non-fiction novel" or "faction", a sub-genre popularized by Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. (Booksellers generally feature the title in the "true crime" subsection.) It is among the most popular non-fiction releases of all time. The title alludes to the hoodoo notion of "midnight", the period between the time for good magic and the time for evil magic, and "the garden of good and evil," which refers principally to Bonaventure Cemetery. The famous Bird Girl statue, originally designed both as art and as a birdseed holder, was originally located at Bonaventure. A Savannah photographer, Jack Leigh, was commissioned to take a photograph for the cover of the book, and in so doing he created his now famous photograph of the statue. The Bird Girl was relocated in 1997 for display in the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah. The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize, and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_in_the_Garden_of_Good_and_Evil Berendt grew up in Syracuse, New York, where both of his parents were writers. As an English major at Harvard University, he worked on the staff of the Harvard Lampoon. He graduated in 1961 and moved to New York City to pursue a journalism career.[1] He was an associate editor of Esquire from 1961 to 1969, editor of New York magazine from 1977 to 1979 and a columnist for Esquire from 1982 to 1994.[1] Berendt published Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1994 and became an overnight success; the book spent a record-breaking 216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list[2] -— still, to this day, the longest standing best seller of the Times. The story, unsettling and real, broke down the idea of the quintessential phenomenon of a true American city—only to reveal its quirks: its man walking an invisible dog; its voice of the drag queen; a high-society man in its elite community—all that somehow, unravels a murder mystery. Virtually seeming like a novel and reading like a tale, the non-fictional story is about the real-life events surrounding the murder trial of James Arthur Williams in Savannah, Georgia.[3] Berendt has since acknowledged that he fabricated some scenes and changed the sequence of some events.[4] Midnight was adapted into a 1997 film, directed by Clint Eastwood, receiving mixed reviews. John Cusack plays a character loosely based on Berendt. Berendt's second book, The City of Falling Angels, was published in September 2005.[5] It chronicles interwoven lives in Venice in the aftermath of the fire that destroyed the La Fenice opera house. According to Kirkus Reviews, "Berendt does great justice to an exalted city that has rightly fascinated the likes of Henry James, Robert Browning, and many filmmakers throughout the world." (August 1, 2005) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berendt