Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt (1994)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt

                Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a story about the many different types of people living Savannah and the culture that existed in the 1980s. It was 1981 when Danny Hansford was shot three times by Jim Williams in the study of the Mercer Home. Berendt, the author and narrator of this story, had known Williams and had met Hansford before his untimely death. Berendt would live in Savannah part-time throughout the course of the many trials Williams resulting from the killing and William’s cry of self-defense. As much about the murder as it is about the culture and people of those living in Savannah at the time, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is an interesting look at life in southern Georgia.

                It took me a while to really get into this novel. I expected the story to focus more on the actual murder case and trial. Instead, the first hundred pages of the book focused on many outlying characters and their situations. Not much of that was relevant to the Williams case. Berendt talked about his friendship with a drag queen, a lawyer/fraud, musicians and socialites. He basically presented a lot of information on how people lived in Savannah. I enjoy learning about characters as much as the next person but the story didn’t feel like it had a center. Sometimes he would speak on the trial and at another moment he was at a debutante ball afraid his drag queen friend would start harassing people. At times this book really seemed all over the place with its storyline. Berendt’s ability to write is what held the story together.

                Now Williams’s murder trial, in my opinion, should have been front and center. I think reading a nonfiction book that focused on a wealthy man, the death of his young lover, and his fight to be acquitted could have been really fascinating and well done. This reads like a novel because Berendt takes some privileges, which he admits in his author’s notes, that stray from this being a strict nonfiction. So while enjoyable and recommendable I must state that this is more of a characterization of those in living in Georgia at the time then it is a story about the relationship between Williams and Hansford and the case that occurred. I give this 3 out of 5 stars.