Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt

A Savannah Story
John Berendt
This last year for Christmas we made our first trip to Savannah, Georgia. While there we did the usual tourist thing and took a guided tour of the town which is very rich in history. There were many references to the book “Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil” A Savannah Story by John Berendt while there for our visit. I must admit that the story is an interesting one full of many different characters. When reading this book you must remember that this book is based on people and events which are real only some of the names have been changed. I also must caution about some of the adult content in the book.
There are many interesting characters that populate the world of Savannah as presented in this novel. Jim Williams is one of the main characters, who is an antiques dealer and the restorer of old houses. He has a passion for Faberge and Nazi memorabilia There are hints to his life style that lead to his going on trial for murder. I will leave it stand at that because the trial is an interesting part of the story. His friend and neighbor Joe Odam, piano player, who is always one step ahead of the law. He writes bad checks, opens his home to tourists even if it is not his house and lives with a menagerie of characters.
There is also the inventor, Luther Driggers, who is rumored to have a bottle of poison five hundred times more deadly then arsenic which if added to the cities water supply would kill everyone. Luther's other hobby included anesthetized ordinary house flies and glued lengths of thread to their backs. He has been known to walk through downtown Savannah holing a dozen or more threads in his hand walking flies. There is also Chablis the drag queen who is dating a guy who likes women. Add Minerva with her purple glasses, who practices voodoo, wandering the graveyards and putts curses on people. There is a wide variety of characters and personalities in this well written novel. It is a surprising human drama which adds to the intrigue that is Savannah.