User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt is a 1994 Random House publication.
In 2019, I read a handful of books that were huge bestsellers in the past, but for some reason or another, I’d never gotten around to reading them. I had so much fun reading the ‘books everyone on the planet has read but me’, I decided to make that a part of my reading journey again this year.
This is one of those books everyone was reading back in the mid-nineties. I have been meaning to read it for ages and ages. I saw the movie many years ago, never realizing until much later that it was based on true events. Once I discovered this was a work of ‘true crime’, I knew I had to read the book- because the book is always better!
The book is about the real- life murder of Danny Hansford, an ill -tempered, volatile 'handyman', who was shot to death by his lover, Jim Williams, in Savannah, Georgia in the early 1980s.
The author, a native New Yorker, who had fallen in love with Savannah, decided to write a book about the sensational murder. To help readers understand the climate, Berendt paints a unique portrait of Savannah, a city which preferred to keep to itself and relished its isolation. The city, however, is quite lively, steeped in beauty and history, and is the host to a slew of eccentric characters and goings on, blended with southern gentility, and although not advertised at that time, a thriving gay community.
Berendt writes the book in a first -person narrative, a unique approach for a book marketed as true crime. The book, as many others have pointed out, reads like a novel, a work of fiction- only it’s not. However, it should be noted that Berendt did fudge the timelines, and embellished some events, so in truth, the book isn’t one hundred percent factual- but it’s close enough.
As in the movie, Lady Chablis, steals the show, lock, stock and barrel. But she did occasionally distract from the crime, which was supposed to be the focal point of the book. Williams swore he shot Danny in self-defense. His claim, however, contradicted the forensics analysis, about gunshot residue, among other things. I won’t give anything away, just in case you haven’t read the book, but the case lingered on for years before a final judgement was made, once and for all. Justice may or may not have been served in the courtroom, but if one were to believe Minerva, the voodoo priestess, it very well may have prevailed in other ways- from outside of this earthly realm…
Despite any liberties the author may have taken, the book is very absorbing and, well- entertaining- which may seem like an odd choice of words, but if you’ve read this book, you’ll know what I mean. What a cast of characters!
Berendt did an amazing job in telling this incredible tale. It’s no wonder this book stayed on the NYT bestseller list for 216 weeks, after its debut!
4 stars
Rating: really liked it
this book has a lot of fans. that makes some sense. magazines are certainly very popular, and this is magazine writing at its most polished. Berendt knows how to create an atmosphere. he knows how to describe things in a style that is careful, subtle, and enfused with a deadpan but rather mischievious irony. he can certainly describe the way a rich man's house looks - so well that you could then describe it to someone else as if you've been there. characters are sketched with an expert's hand - using a combination of physical details and the telltale mannerism or two - "objective" but rather sympathetic. the mystery at the heart of this novel is an absorbing one. and the book's central figure - the maybe-a-murderer - felt like he was an iteration of the film JFK's Clay Shaw, as played in an unusually fancy style by Tommy Lee Jones. which i liked, at first.
so why only 2 stars? well,
it is polished magazine writing. it does not transcend, it does not delve deep. there is the slow but increasingly annoying realization that Berendt sees our anti-hero as a kind of social peer, which for some reason really bothered me. who knows, maybe i just automatically hate the rich & parasitic. Berendt writes about a whole gallery of characters, all characterized briefly but adroitly, and eventually i realized i was reading a classier version of a tourist-eye's view of Southern grotesques, a drive-by tour of weirdos. how aggravating! who knows, maybe i just automatically empathize with the weirdos and am annoyed by the normals. and then there is the sad fact of THE LACK OF BLACK PEOPLE WHO COME ACROSS AS REAL PEOPLE. yes, they are there (several) but for the most part they are part of the gallery of grotesquerie. this novel takes place in a part of the country that has a huge black community and i found the lack of this demographic - even ones who, i suppose, Berendt would consider non-grotesque - to be perplexing and troubling.
Rating: really liked it
Extraordinary story and characters, slow read, some parts for me were a bit hard to get through, that's why four stars and not five. A classic though. Loved it. Now I want to go to Savannah too....
Another early review of mine coming up... how times flies.
Oh my, I loved this book!
Rating: really liked it
This is a book about the shooting of a young man in a rich guy’s fancy house, but the real crime is how boring this story is!!! Ayo!
I do not know what happened here.
I mean, this book has EVERYTHING:
- old rich people
- gossip about the aforementioned old rich people
- the history of the city of Savannah (famously interesting place, not even being sarcastic, and yes it is concerning to me that my earnest thoughts read as irony)
- drag queens
- alcoholism
- historical restorations
- feuds
- murder
- voodoo (especially of the middle-of-the-night-and-done-in-cemeteries variety)
- scandalous old women
- courtroom thriller storylines
- prison
- historical figures and who they had affairs with (cough, Judy Garland, cough)
- mentions of Moon River, a very good song that has the added benefit of reminding humanity about Audrey Hepburn
AND it’s under 400 pages. AND it had the longest uninterrupted stay on the New York Times bestseller list.
And somehow it is boring. Like truly a punishment to get through. Took me 5 times as long than I expected and that still felt like a long walk through a pond of Jell-o.
And not even a good Jell-o flavor.
Bottom line: WHY MUST I SUFFER.
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dedicating my life to figuring out how this book, which contains murder and voodoo and gossip and scandal and courtroom plotlines and drag queens and ornery old ladies and Savannah, could be so goddamn boring.
review to come / 2.5 stars
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thrilled to finally find a way to combine my two biggest passions: reading and gossip
Rating: really liked it
Note, February 2014: I was just rereading this review, and FUNNY STORY, I moved to a small town. Not so much a big city person as I had originally thought...
Original review, circa 2007: I love this book to the point where I don't even really know what to say about it, because nothing I can say about it will be good enough to explain just how incredible this book really is.
After reading this book, I had to restrain myself from booking a flight to Savannah. It makes you want to be there, it makes you want to know the people, it makes you want to pick up and find a place just like it so you can move there. I am a city person through and through, but this book made me want to move to a small town. The characters are so remarkable, so interesting that you can't believe they are real people. This books makes you proud to be a human being as much as it makes you laugh at our ridiculousness.
A NOTE ABOUT THE MOVIE: don't see it before you read the book. (but if you have seen the movie and haven't read the book, please read the book because it's so much better.) while the movie essentially leaves no doubt about the actual account of the murder that it focuses around, the book does not. and the book is also not nearly as centered around Jim Williams as the movie is.
Rating: really liked it
And as “the Angels Sing’ justice is finally served !!!
The setting is Savannah, a hauntingly beautiful city, and one of the oldest in the state of Georgia, so how perfect for a gripping crime novel told under a veil of Spanish moss and in shaded squares. Only ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ is a retelling of a true crime story whilst still possessing all the ingredients and witty dialogue of a fictional story. The characters are deeply drawn and somewhat eccentric, the setting is idyllic, and the plot would draw the envy of fictional writers.
Yet on that day in May 1981 a different veil or cloak hung over Savannah when the shots from the Mercer mansion signalled the death of Billy Hanson. Self-defence or murder?. Jim Williams spent the best part of a decade trying to defend his story of self-defence, whilst the justice system was equally keen to find him guilty. A man of stature and wealth in the community drawing many friends and enemies alike. A first-person account as they learn,
“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”But as “the Angels Sing” in the final chapters, justice is finally served, in a melodious ending for one !!!
Review and CommentsI found the opening chapters a bit slow and dry. So to help re-imagine the scene, the ambiance and backdrop of this famous story I researched pictures of Savannah and the actual building where Hanson was found dead which helped provide the enchanting theatre at the heart of this story. The plot itself is excellent and chilling more so because it is based on true events, trials and testimonies. Apart from this it was the dizzying array of characters that made the book for me, from the hilarious drag queen, to the voodoo woman in the cemetery at midnight, to the piano playing guests. As for Savannah itself
“Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone”A great story, with a remarkable set of characters all of whom are apparently real (apart from a few name changes), however it was the flow, writing style and staid dialogue that prevented me from giving this 5 stars and held me back from engaging with this story fully. As a fictional reader it is worth reading but as a fictional lover I wanted to connect more with the story.
Rating: really liked it
BkC7)Delicious, shimmering prose. Wonderful story. Savannah really should give Mr. Berendt a pension.
Well now, I have to dim my searchlight to a streetlight. Still think it's good but now, well, now I can't see past the one-hit-wonderness to the glories I once took for granted.
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: 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.
My Review: Bored Manhattanite journalist realizes, back in the 1980s, that lunch at a trendy restaurant costs more than air fare to a sexy Southern retreat (those were the days!) and the resulting experience was more lasting. So John Berendt becomes a commuter to Savannah, Georgia, which is the American Bath for sheer physical prettiness, though quite a lot hotter.
Being a good journalist, he meets everyone worth meeting, and being a gay man, meets the entire A list of gay life in this small city in record time. Then he stumbles into an amazing story of murder and skulduggery among the social elite as the elite intersects with gay and gay-for-pay culture.
Along the way he talks to every single interesting person in Savannah and builds a word-picture of its typically Southern hierarchical social scene. As The Lady Chablis, an African-American drag queen made briefly famous by this book, would say, "Flawless!"
Not exactly flawless, but wonderful. Southern characters abound, including the old root woman who introduces Yankee John to the world of the haints and spirits and loa that Southerners, even the Babdiss ones, are aware exists, even when they scream and rail about it as evil, wrong, bad...well, they do that about sex too, and with as much effect.
Cemetery dirt is a powerful ingredient in the sympathetic magic the old root women practice. Where it comes from, that is whose grave it was, matters, as do many other factors, and Yankee John reports with wide-eyed fascination on the entire experience of getting involved in the magical universe to help an accused murderer.
The end of the story is, very sadly, the end of a single book career. The City of Falling Angels notwithstanding, this is Mr. B's one book. Fortunately, it's a very good one. Unfortunately, it's the only one. And so I ding a half-star off for literary incomplete pass. But it's a helluva read!
Rating: really liked it
3.5 rounded up - I’ve been wanting to read this book for ages as I’ve been beguiled by the book cover ever since it was published in 1994. A selection chosen for October by the ‘On the Southern Literary Trail,’ I finally buckled down to see what the hullabaloo was all about as this novel was on the New York Times bestseller list for 216 weeks. It includes a murder mystery but at its heart seems as much about Savannah and a colorful cast of characters as it does about a murder.
It was evident from the start that wealth played the biggest role in getting on the roster of prominent people in Savannah. Jim Williams decorated Mercer House with antiques, a commodity that performed the double function of bringing him wealth and then serving as a demonstration of it to the community. His annual Christmas party was a hot ticket event; his guest list was compiled with great care as to the who’s in and who’s out invitees. Buying, restoring, and selling houses was also Williams’s stock in trade. Williams was not born in Savannah but in the small Georgia town of Gorden. His rise to prominence broke through the exclusivity of Savannah’s higher echelons.
Another colorful character is Joe Odum, one of the author’s neighbors in Savannah. Joe is a fly-by-night lawyer who plays the piano incessantly and has troops of people wandering in and out of his house. When his funds are insufficient to pay his electric bill, he hooks onto the neighbor's electricity. His financial dealings are a mess. When kicked out of one residence, he takes up living in a home where the owners are out of the country for six months. His girlfriend, Mandy Nichols, was once crowned BBW, Miss Big Beautiful Woman in Las Vegas. Mandy is counting on becoming the next Mrs. Joe Odum.
Another character who could be the subject of a book on her own is Lady Chablis. An African American transgender nightclub star, Berendt first met her as he was parking his $800 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix, a car that Joe Odum had helped him find. Chablis had just come out of Dr. Myra Bishop’s office, where she received hormone shots. She immediately annexes Berendt as her chauffeur.
“How come a white boy like you is drivin’ a old, broken-down, jiveass bruthuh’s heap like this?” Chablis’s language and mannerisms are hilarious, often lewd. The funniest moment of the entire book occurs toward the end when Chablis tries to attach herself to Berendt as his date to the black debutante ball. The black debutante ball is a very upstanding event, one that’s significant for the young ladies who are invited to attend. Berendt refuses Chablis as his date, but she manages to make an entrance there anyway. What follows is highly entertaining.
When Clint Eastwood directed the film version, Chablis plays herself in the movie.
I was mildly disappointed that the murder didn’t occur until page 169. I’m not usually a blood-thirsty reader but parts of ‘Midnight’ read like the gossip columns and I got a bit bored with who’s who. Things picked up after that but classism continues to be a thread throughout. I enjoyed Chablis and even Joe Odum thumbing their noses at tradition and high society.
One theme that Jim Williams puts into play is the power of magical thinking. He does this through a game he invented called
Psycho Dice. As he rolls the dice, Williams sends out strong vibrations for the numbers he calls, thinking that doing so improves his odds. He cools down his young, irascible chauffeur, Danny Hansford by sending out powerful thoughts. He engages the services of voodoo practitioner Minerva, who scrapes up graveyard dirt and touts the recollection of good thoughts thirty minutes before midnight and the utterance of curses for the thirty minutes after midnight as powerful prognosticators. The ending gives persuasive testimony to Minerva’s abilities and makes this a perfect story for Halloween.
Rating: really liked it
One of the best 'true crime' book I have ever read. Every inch of the story is fascinating. It reads like a novel. I actually had to keep reminding myself that it was, in fact, a true crime book. From the very first chapter I felt drawn in. I immediately wanted to go to Savannah and see it for myself.
So often in true crime books the characters are a little flat. Berendt was really able to make them come to life. His writing made the whole city come to life. His ability to infiltrate the seemly exclusive Savannah society and do such an awesome character study was amazing.
The personalities in the book are so bizarre and fantastic. It is almost hard to believe that they all live in a small city together. It had almost the same Southern society vibe to it as
Time to Kill. The focus was not so much on the crime but rather the mesh of characters are interwoven into the plot (if I can call it that).
In to my re-read pile it goes!
Just found out that it's a movie with Kevin Spacey. Wonder if it's on Netflix?
Rating: really liked it
”Now, you know how dead time works. Dead time lasts for one hour—from half an hour before midnight to half an hour after midnight. The half hour before midnight is for doin’ good. The half hour after midnight is for doin’ evil.”
“Right,” said Williams.
“Seems like we need a little of both tonight,” said Minerva, “so we best be on our way.”
…
For me, Savannah’s resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has always been a difficult book to describe. On one level, it’s a nonfiction crime story about a murder trial (well, four of them) in Savannah, Georgia. In the early morning of May 2, 1981, Jim Williams, a wealthy, self-made antiques dealer, shot and killed Danny Hansford, his young, hot-tempered handyman/assistant. Was it murder or self-defense? Though the book runs through the end of the trials and the appeals, you’ll never really, truly know for sure whether justice was done in the case.
But what makes
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil so fascinating and memorable is that, even though it’s centered around this shooting and the legal drama that followed, it’s not really about those things at all. The shooting doesn’t even happen until the midpoint of the book. Instead, the book is about Savannah in the 1980s, and the unbelievably, wonderfully eccentric group of people there. Joe Odom, the piano playing con man affectionately known as the sentimental gentleman. Emmy Kelly, the Lady of 6000 Songs. The Married Woman’s Card Club, made up of exactly 16 women, no more no less. Defense attorney Sonny Seiler, owner of the University of Georgia’s bulldog mascots for the last 30 years. Minerva, the voodoo priestess Jim Williams hires to fix his trials. And perhaps the most famous real-life character of them all, The Lady Chablis, aka the Grand Empress of Savannah.
I was concerned that
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be a cringey re-read all these years later, with so much of the book being about a shooting by a gay man and about a black transgender woman. But I think the story held up well. The author holds no judgment of either character’s gender or sexuality. And while the author uses The Lady Chablis’s own moniker of “drag queen” instead of the word “transgender,” the story showed way-ahead-of-its-time sensitivity and support toward the issue. The Lady Chablis is larger than life, and outrageously over the top (never more so than when she crashes the black debutante ball), but she’s never anything other than a Lady.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a unique reading experience. It only works because it’s nonfiction, and the goings on in beautiful, insular Savannah so funny—if these unbelievable characters were fictional, everyone would have rejected the story as too absurd. Highly recommended, and a must-read if you never have.
Rating: really liked it
I purchased this book while in Savannah for the first time. I had been promised that the text would capture the spirit of this reclusive and beautiful city. And it did, I have no complaints there. Mr. Brendt weaves this character driven travelogue into the true story of a sensational murder trial that dominated Savannah for nearly a decade. That is a nice device as it allows the author to "character hop" so to speak, while being able to bring the text back to a central incident, the murder trial.
This book is an excellent read if you are interested in the city of Savannah, or are fascinated by the small eccentricities that make every town unique. Mr. Brendt captures both nicely. Although his writing is not spectacular, it is rather mundane and average, his fondness for Savannah and its denizens comes across the page and envelops the reader. You find yourself liking these people despite their oddities, and in some cases, criminal behavior.
My only gripe is that the book has substantial portions that are made up, and chronologically smashed together. This by the author's own admission. I wish he had not done that, as it detracts from the legitimacy of the story, and gives readers the out of thinking that some of the more outrageous aspects of the text were made up. Whether they were or not, I do not know.
The text starts out slow, but builds nicely, and I was never bored. When Mr. Brendt introduces the characters of Joe Odum, and later on, Chablis the text gets a humorous lift. Read the book, and then visit Savannah, you'll see what I mean.
Rating: really liked it
I got rather surprised when I read reviews after finishing this and realized it was a non fiction. Definitely did not feel like that, was a lot more like a novel. But that didn't mean that it wasn't good. It was very good, and I quite liked getting that surprised for some reason.
Rating: really liked it
“The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the “bestselling true crime classic” that I personally wouldn’t specifically categorise as true crime, but as more of an entertaining examination of a community and all its eccentric characters. With a murder thrown in for good measure.
It’s a first-person account of life in an isolated remnant of the Old South - specifically Savannah, Georgia - where nothing really changes. Until one day shots ring out in one of Savannah’s grandest mansions. The book has a real sense of place, as Berendt so beautifully describes this city. I’ve since added it to the bucket list of places that I must visit before I die!
The characters that live here are absolutely OFF THE CHARTS. They’re all so eccentric and unique, it truly feels as though you are reading about fictional people. There’s a voodoo priestess, a recluse who owns a bottle of poison so lethal it could kill everyone in town, a HILARIOUS Black drag queen, a redneck escort... I could go on. Some of the stories had me shrieking with laughter as I thought “but this can’t be real!!” And yet it is - for the most part. Similar to the other “true crime classic”, In Cold Blood, some parts are filled-in by the narrator in order to complete the narrative. But it’s so fuckin’ entertaining and funny I don’t even care how much of it is actually true!
I would say don’t pick up this expecting your usual true crime novel. Sure, there’s a murder and a court case etc, but for the most part that was the secondary to the story of this city and it’s crazy inhabitants. My only minor quibble is that some parts moved a little slow, but on the whole I had a BLAST reading this! I’d definitely recommend. 4 stars.
Rating: really liked it
This was a decent book. There was a lot of mood, of which I'm a big fan. The characters all had the potential to be very interesting, but unfortuately, they weren't developed. That's not to say you don't spend a lot of time with them, or find out anything about them, it's just that you don't really give a damn.
The book is written by a magazine journalist who ends up living on and off in Savanah, GA for eight years to investigate and chronicle a murder and it's trials. This book is more or less one long magazine article, detailng the events, and lives, but never really giving you sympathy for any of the characters.
It does a fine job of keeping the mystery of whether Jim Williams really did the deed a secret, but in comparison to In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (which I'm reading currently) this is not worth the effort.
Rating: really liked it
One advantage of bringing fresh eyes to an old town like Savannah, Georgia, is that the newcomer can cross social, racial, religious and economic lines with relative ease. Reporter John Berendt made the most of it in this bestseller.
Midnight is a penetrating look at Coastal South culture that is zestily written and a hell of a lot of fun to read.
While I enjoyed the ensuing movie very much, I like the book even more because it can take more time doing its job -- basically following a very bemused New York reporter (Berendt) around in search of answers to a controversial murder, as he crosses paths with Uga the "Damn Good Dog," meets Luther the "fly man," gets special permission to visit the Married Women's Card Club, learns about the hustler who was "the good time not yet had by all," dabbles in hoodoo, and of course makes the acquaintance of Lady Chablis, who had to tape her "Thing" down before she appeared in public. And for all the eccentricity, you'll actually learn a lot about Savannah!
The book under review, which is not to be confused with
AFTER MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL by a different author, is worth seeking out specifically. Used copies are plentiful, too, even in hardcover. I, for one, consider this MIDNIGHT among the very best of investigative crime NF with a "creative non-fiction" flair, and would rank it at or near such works as IN COLD BLOOD or John Cullen's COLUMBINE. Go for it!
