Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The book

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospherically Deep South coastal (Savannah, Georgia, Beaufort, South Carolina) and Southern Gothic in tone, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities in and around the city of Savannah, Georgia.

The story, unsettling and real, broke down the idea of the quintessential phenomenon of a true American city—only to reveal its quirks: its man walking an invisible dog; its voice of the drag queen; a high-society man in its elite community—all that somehow, unravels a murder mystery. Virtually seeming like a novel and reading like a tale, the non-fictional story is about the real-life events surrounding the murder.

The central narrative concerns the killing of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute (characterized as "a good time not yet had by all") by an important Savannah socialite, respected antiques dealer Jim Williams. This results in four murder trials, with the fourth ending in acquittal after the judge finally agreed to a change of venue to move the case away from the Savannah jury pool. The book describes Williams' version of the killing, which is that it was in "self-defense"—the result of Hansford, who is prone to fits of rage, shooting at Williams with a gun that is on display, and Williams shooting back in self-defense—and not murder, pre-meditated or otherwise by Williams. The death occurred in Williams' home, which was originally built by West Point graduate and US Army and CSA Colonel Hugh W. Mercer, grandfather of songwriter and Savannah native Johnny Mercer, and grandson of Hugh Mercer of Pennsylvania, who was a hero of the Battle of Trenton and adjutant to General George Washington of the Continental Army.

The book highlights many other notable Savannah residents, as well, including The Lady Chablis, a transgender woman and local drag queen and entertainer. Chablis provides both a Greek chorus of sorts as well as a light-hearted contrast to the more serious action.

Real life events

The book's plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a "non-fiction novel" or "faction", a subgenre popularized by Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. (Booksellers generally feature the title in the "true crime" subsection. )

Title

The title alludes to the voodoo notion of "midnight", the period between the time for good magic (11 pm to midnight) and the time for evil magic (midnight to 1 am), and "the garden of good and evil", which refers principally to the cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina, where Dr. Buzzard, the husband of Minerva, the voodoo priestess who figures in the story, is buried. It is over his grave that Minerva performed the incantations to ensure a more successful result in the retrial for murder of the book's protagonist, Jim Williams.

Cover

The famous Bird Girl statue, originally designed both as art and as a birdseed holder, was originally located at Savannah's historic Bonaventure Cemetery. A Savannah photographer, Jack Leigh, was commissioned to take a photograph for the cover of the book. The cover image became immediately iconic, with author John Berendt calling it "one of the strongest covers I've ever seen", and the statue became a popular stop for tourists. Due to rising concerns about the integrity of the statue and the cemetery's privacy, Bird Girl was relocated in 1997 for display in Telfair Museums in Savannah. In late 2014, the statue was moved to a dedicated space in the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts on West York Street, in Savannah. Both Hugh W. Mercer and Johnny Mercer are buried in Bonaventure Cemetery.

Awards

The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.