Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

This classic is technically nonfiction, but it reads like a mystery novel as it follows the story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer on trial for the killing of Danny Hansford.

I’ve read this book more than once, savoring John Berendt’s lyrical prose and his brilliant evocation of the charm, eccentricity—and fear—one can find in America’s most beautiful and haunted city: Savannah, Georgia.

Larger-than-life characters can be a bear to write. They give so much, but you really have to rein them in, or they’ll look like clowns. And I know about characters. I’m from the South. I had a mother who used to wear a shower cap in the rain because, you know, she’d just had her hair done.

Reading Midnight in the Garden was like flipping through a family album. The guy with the one-winged housefly attached to a string? My family could match that. The guy who fake-walked a dog for years? Maybe that, too. This book is one of… show more.

On an early trip to Savannah, I stayed a block from the mansion where the murder at the heart of John Berendt’s bestselling book took place and where the movie was filmed. I wrote much of my own book in another apartment not far away. In my writing, I was inspired by the way Berendt included himself in his story and I decided to incorporate some of my own struggles to uncover the truth about the brutal murder of William K. Dean.

A favorite guilty pleasure, I read this non-fiction novel on repeat. And egads, please don’t miss the cover photo of The Bird Girl, a chilling statue that inhabits a cemetery. It drips Southern Gothic, as does the name of the book itself: the half-hour before midnight is a time for good magic, the half-hour after is time for malevolence. Have goosebumps yet?

The story is based on the murder of a prostitute for which the protagonist is accused. The allure of the tale includes fascinating, eccentric characters, the beauty of Savannah’s haunting charm, and the mystical underpinnings of hoodoo which… show more.

This is a book I read a long time ago, but it stuck with me for its humor –– rare in any book about crime. The murder (or was it self-defense?) took place in Savannah, Georgia, and was said to have "everything going for it –– snobbism, ruthless power, voodoo, local color, and a totally evil estheticism." Another reviewer wrote, "John Berendt has written a gorgeous and haunting blend of travel book and murder mystery. It is enchanting and disturbing and deeply atmospheric."