Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
| File:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil cover.jpg
The cover of the 1994 book, which features the Bird Girl sculpture.
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| Author | John Berendt |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Nonfiction novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
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Publication date
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January 1994 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 389 pp |
| ISBN | 0-679-42922-0 |
| OCLC | 27975809 |
| 975.8/724 20 | |
| LC Class | F294.S2 B48 1994 |
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction work by John Berendt. The book, Berendt's first, was published in 1994. It became a New York Times Best-Seller for 216 weeks following its debut and remains the longest-standing New York Times Best-Seller.[1]
The book was subsequently made into a 1997 movie, directed by Clint Eastwood and based loosely on Berendt's story. It was also adapted as a metabook in 2015.[2][3]
Contents
The book
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospherically Deep South and Southern Gothic in tone, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities (unique, yet characteristic of the region[citation needed]) in and around the city of Savannah, Georgia.
The story's catalyst 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 fourth ending in acquittal after the judge finally agreed to move the case away from the Savannah jury pool. The book characterizes the killing as "self-defense", the result of a lovers' quarrel between Hansford and Williams, and not murder, pre-meditated or otherwise by Williams. 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).[citation needed]
The book highlights many other notable Savannah residents, as well, including The Lady Chablis, a transgender 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.
Real life events
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 subgenre popularized by Truman Capote and Norman Mailer.[citation needed] (Booksellers generally feature the title in the "true crime" subsection.[citation needed] ) It is among the most popular non-fiction releases of all time.[citation needed]
Title
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.[citation needed]
Cover
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 Telfair Museums in Savannah. In late 2014, the statue was moved to a dedicated space in its Jepson Center for the Arts on West York Street, in Savannah.[citation needed]
Awards
The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.[4]
See also
- The City of Falling Angels (2005) is Berendt's second book.
References
External links
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