A fading city filled with eccentric people

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt is a book whose genre is difficult to pin down. The author is a journalist who goes to live in the American city of Savannah and he writes about the people he meets there and lives among. He lives in an older part of the city and the characters who inhabit his book live among decaying mansions and beautiful streets. This means that most of the book is a series of vignettes in which the author talks about the people of Savannah and their stories. Part of the book, however, is also a true crime story about a rich socialite who kills his male companion who has been taking financial advantage of him. This means that part of book is about the process which starts after his arrest and the various trials which then occur. The two aspects of the book sometimes sit uneasily beside each other but, on the whole, I think that the book works despite its unusual format.

The people that the author meets and writes about vary considerably in class and occupation although he obviously concentrates on people who we might regard as quirky or unusual. There’s a nightclub singer who seems to squat in houses, plays his piano and holds many parties. There’s another singer who performs in drag. There’s a man who claims to own a small bottle of poison that can kill all the inhabitants of the city. The author introduces us to voodoo as practised in the city, especially in the graveyards. There are rich people who resent the popularity of the area and poor people who prey upon the others. The author obviously loves these people and the city and his affection comes through in his writing.

This is a book about eccentricities and a fading elegance but when you look careful at the stories included you see that many of the characters are living in a fantasy world and that things are rarely going well for them. The murder story seems a little over the top but extensive research (Google) shows me that it actually did happen as the author says. Overall the impression that the book left me with was one of sadness and regret.

This is one man’s view of a city in the 1980s and the characters and events are chosen to give you a certain impression of the city and its people. It is, however, very readable and beautifully written and the author is able to deliver a unique and interesting book.