Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Author(s): John Berendt

True Crime

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.


Product Information

Four years on The New York Times bestseller list

'Elegant and wicked ... Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.' -- The New York Times Book Review

'The best non-fiction novel since IN COLD BLOOD and a lot more entertaining' -- Edmund White

'Enthralling' -- Robert Winder, Independent

'Berendt - and the reader - are in travel-writer heaven ... This is a book which leaves you amused, spooked and introduced to a new piece of America' -- Mark Lawson, Independent on Sunday

'Perfect storytelling - wildly funny, occasionally alarming and utterly enthralling' -- Moira Shearer, Daily Telegraph

General Fields

  • : 9780340992852
  • : Hodder & Stoughton
  • : Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
  • : 0.272
  • : September 2009
  • : 198mm X 130mm X 27mm
  • : September 2017
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 400
  • : 910
  • : Paperback
  • : John Berendt