description: Voodoo. Decadent socialites packing Lugars. Cotillions. With towns like Savannah, Georgia, who needs Fellini? Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil takes two narrative strands--each worthy of its own book--and weaves them together to make a single fascinating tale. The first is author John Berendt's loving depiction of the characters and rascals that prowled Savannah in the eight years it was his home-away-from-home. "Eccentrics thrive in Savannah," he writes, and proves the point by introducing Luther Diggers, a thwarted inventor who just might be plotting to poison the town's water supply; Joe Odom, a jovial jackleg lawyer and squatter nonpareil; and, most memorably, the Lady Chablis, whom you really should meet for yourself. Then, on May 2, 1981, the book's second story line commences, when Jim Williams, a wealthy antique dealer and Savannah's host with the most, kills his "friend" Danny Hansford. (If those quotes make you suspect something, you should.) Was it self-defense, as Williams claimed--or murder? The book sketches four separate trials, during which the dark side of this genteel party town is well and truly plumbed.
language: English
title: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
titlecomplete: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
characters: Jim Williams, Spencer Lawton Jr., Sonny Seiler, Chablis, Lee Adler, Minerva, Lucille Wright, Emma Kelly, William Simon Glover, Conrad Aiken, Mandy Nichols, Johnny Mercer, Luther Driggers, Joe Odom, Mary Harty, Serena Vaughn Dawes, Danny Hansford
genres: Mystery, Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Classics, Travel, Southern, Crime, History, True Crime
ratings_count: 263342
places: Savannah, Georgia
awards: awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: General Nonfiction, awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Exclusive Books Boeke Prize, awardedAt: 757411200000
name: Ferro-Grumley Award
category: Gay Fiction (Non-Fiction), awardedAt: 757411200000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Gay Mystery
publisher: Random House