Making an effort to post a review every Friday!

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

I remember seeing the film in 1997 and it stuck with me, it was a book I always intended to go back and read at some point but kept falling through the cracks. It seems to me now that the film is a faithful adaptation of the novel, though it is limited in what could be presented in a visual medium. There are details of the book that I think might even have eluded Berendt himself—reported comments made by individuals about queer characters which seemed inoffensive to the author but which a different eye might know were barbs. I had some flinching moments, reading this book 28 years on, discussing a crime that occurred in the 1980s, particularly with how queer and POC characters were addressed. However, in equal measure, I learned a few things about representation of queer and POC characters that would never have been discussed in my scope of knowledge. There was a specific point at which the narrator is researching and unable to find an account of someone, and is caught up on segregation practices in newspapers—a detail which has stuck with me as one of many, many factoids which people nowadays deny or have never heard of. And I think that was the purpose of including. The whole book is about perspective and hypocrisy.

The book is classified as non-fiction, but not. It is a narrative of real events which the narrator/author was investigating, the actual slaying of Danny Hansford and the individuals involved in the case. Berendt provides a skewed first hand account of events as he ingratiated himself as an outsider into the culture and personalities of Savannah, Georgia.

While the book is classified as non fiction, there are elements altered from the true story for the purpose of storytelling, causing the book to be referred to as a non-fiction novel. Berendt included stories and characters that were interesting or which did take place, regardless of if they impacted the central focus of the murder trial, for the sake of story telling. Added elements didn’t impact the outcome or course of the trial and so are considered just an illustration of the culture contributing to the crime. Ultimately it’s a series of true-ish events told out of sync with reality. And it’s entertaining. It’s an interesting snapshot that centers Savannah itself as a character by way of showing off it’s varied personalities. Calling the characters quirky or eccentric feels overdone; this isn’t quirky, it’s nearer to an alien observing earthlings.

There is a reason that this story and the way it was told stuck with people.