Photos rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of Might 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For pretty much ten years, the shooting and its own aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful town of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply noticed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, yet it really is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a greatly about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil interesting first-person accounts of life with this isolated remnant of the Aged South with the unpredictable twists and transforms of the landmark murder case.

It really is a spellbinding tale peopled with a gallery of remarkable character types: the well-bred society ladies from the Married Woman’s Card Membership; the turbulent youthful redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who is the owner of a container of poison so powerful it could destroy every man, girl, and kid in Savannah; the maturing and profane Southern belle who is the ‘spirit of pampered self-absorption’; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con musician; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who functions her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and additional Savannahians become a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive inside a town where everyone understands everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Great and Evil is certainly a sublime and seductive reading encounter. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously participating portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.