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.^[1]

The book was subsequently made into a 1997 movie, directed by Clint Eastwood and based loosely on Berendt's story. The book also coined the phrase "two tears in a bucket" (basically meaning "life goes on"), which has been used in various songs including ones by Method Man, DMX and the entrance music for professional wrestling stable D-Generation X.

The book

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospheric and Southern Gothic in tone, depicting a wide range of eccentric Savannah personalities.

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 antique dealer Jim Williams. Four murder trials resulted, 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 took place in Williams' home, originally built by an ancestor of songwriter and Savannah native Johnny Mercer.

The novel also highlights many other residents of Savannah, most notably The Lady Chablis, a 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 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.

Awards

The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize, and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.^[2]

See also

• The City of Falling Angels is John Berendt's second book.

References

1. ^ New Georgia Encyclopedia: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
2. ^ Jan Whitt (28 August 2008). Settling the borderland: other voices in literary journalism. University Press of America. p. 53. ISBN 9780761840930. http://books.google.com/books?id=8UftPA8gv_8C&pg=PA51. Retrieved 12 September 2010. 

External links

• Photos of the first edition of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• Booknotes interview with Berendt on Midnight, August 28, 1997.
• Official book site on Random House