March 2018: John Berendt

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March 2018: John Berendt

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1sweetiegherkin
gen. 19, 2018, 5:48 pm

March's author is John Berendt. Anyone read any of his books before? What do you plan to read this month?

2BookConcierge
gen. 20, 2018, 8:18 am

I've read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (twice) and The City of Falling Angels .... I think they may be his only full-length books.

3sweetiegherkin
gen. 20, 2018, 9:59 am

>2 BookConcierge: Yeah, I noticed he didn't have a ton of works to choose from, but sometimes it's nice when we're all reading the same title ... makes for more in-depth conversations about particulars. :)

4Yells
gen. 21, 2018, 7:07 pm

I have Midnight on the shelf so will join in. I've read any of his stuff.

5fogisbeautiful
feb. 15, 2018, 12:19 pm

I love the idea of this group! I'm a little late to jump into the February read (I could do it, but it's busy around here ;P), but Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has been on my to-read list for a long time, so I'm excited to read it :)

6Yells
feb. 15, 2018, 3:46 pm

Welcome!

7sweetiegherkin
feb. 25, 2018, 5:27 pm

>5 fogisbeautiful: Yes, welcome indeed! To be honest, we're a pretty loose about the time guidelines so feel to chime into any conversation whenever :)

8sweetiegherkin
març 3, 2018, 2:09 pm

It's officially March! Anyone reading John Berendt's books yet? I'm picking up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as an audiobook from the library today but need a couple of days to finish up my current audiobook before I can start it.

9Yells
març 5, 2018, 10:09 pm

I am just about finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and I love it. The richness of the writing is bringing Savannah to life in my living room and I feel like I am meeting all these people for myself.

10.Monkey.
març 6, 2018, 3:47 am

I read Midnight... many years ago, I know I enjoyed it but I remember nothing. I should see if my mom can locate my copy. The city of falling angels has been on my shelf for a long while, not sure if I'll be getting to it soon or not, haha, but I'm sure it's good. :P

11Yells
Editat: març 6, 2018, 9:13 am

Midnight is about a journalist who visits Savannah, falls in love and decides to return there every year. Over the years, he stays longer and longer. He meets a whole host of interesting people along the way including: an eccentric guy who owns one of the last great homes and spends his time feuding with his neighbour and trying not to get killed by his assistant/lover, the flamboyant squatter who moves from house to house throwing piano parties and staying one step ahead of creditors and a transitioning drag queen.

The first half is part history, part memoir. He brings Savannah to life and invites you into his world to meet all these characters. At the start of the second part, a murder occurs and you get sucked into the courtroom and Savannahian (?) politics.

I would imagine the audiobook would be a fantastic way to read this book (if done right). Let me know how that goes.

12Yells
març 7, 2018, 11:26 am

Finished and really enjoyed it!

13sweetiegherkin
març 13, 2018, 10:37 am

>11 Yells: I'm enjoying the audiobook so far (the reader is quite excellent), but I'm still very much in the beginning -- have been stuck home sick for a few days and the audiobook is for when I'm in the car.

14Yells
març 13, 2018, 11:31 am

Boo on being sick but yay on enjoying it so far!

15sweetiegherkin
març 25, 2018, 12:40 pm

>14 Yells: Thanks, feeling all better now :)

16sweetiegherkin
març 25, 2018, 1:12 pm

So I finished listening to the audiobook of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, read by Jeff Woodman, who was absolutely fabulous at bringing to life all these characters and making each voice unique and fitting to the personality.

I enjoyed the book a lot. The first half, as Yells described above, introduces the reader to a number of interesting personalities in Savannah as the author meets them. This includes a man who walks an imaginary dog every day, a biracial couple who are only seen together in public when jogging a pace apart, a fading beauty from the 1930s, a performer dubbed "The Lady of 6,000 Songs," and so forth. While these were certainly colorful people with interesting stories, I must confess I was a little off-put trying to remember who everyone was, especially as some of these people do weave back and forth into the narrative and some do not.

The second half of the book concerns a case in which a wealthy antiques dealer shoots a young employee in his study sometime in the middle of the night. He claims self-defense, but it's up to the court to decide. Here I have some questions for other readers, which I'll put behind the spoiler tag just in case:


- What's your opinion of Jim Williams's guilt or innocence? What do you make of his "confession" to Berendt about staging the scene?
- Regardless of whether Williams is guilty or innocent, do you think the DA really provided a "burden of proof" in the case against Williams? Were you surprised by the guilty of murder verdict (rather than even, say, the involuntary manslaughter option)? Do you think that Williams's homosexuality played a large role in the verdict reached?
- Were you surprised that moving the case to outside of Savannah would really make that much of a difference in the verdict?


Throughout the book, you see highlights of Savannah's culture -- the beautiful old homes, their pride in university football, the festive St. Patrick's Day parade, the Alpha Phi cotillion, etc. -- as well as less favorable aspects, such as the negative attitudes toward people of color, the LGBT community, and so forth. Of course, the book was set in the 80s and early 90s, so here's hoping there's been some progress since then.

The audiobook version I listened to also had an interview with Berendt at the end. He had some rather interesting things to say. For instance, the first agent he brought the book to said that while it was compelling, it was "too local" to warrant publication for a broader audience. He then moved on to another agent, and the rest is history -- the book became a major bestseller, translated into more than a dozen languages, and turned into a major motion picture. He noted that the two performers in the book (Emma Kelly and the Lady Chablis) received boosts to their careers and that tourism to Savannah increased by 46 percent. That last one I found rather interesting, as I personally didn't feel super compelled to visit Savannah as a result of reading this book.

Notably, Berendt also says that he took a bit of license with the timeline when he wrote this book. He admits that he did not arrive in Savannah until after the shooting, but he presented the book as though he were there beforehand so that he could introduce readers to various Savannahians before the big incident takes place. In fact, he did not arrive in Savannah until after the second trial had already taken place. He says that the scene in which he is speaking with Williams and a drunk Danny Hansford bursts in the room did actually occur, but obviously not to him as Danny was already dead by the time he arrived. Instead, he took an event that happened with another person and pretended it was something he witnessed firsthand. I was rather surprised by that information as it had appeared that Berendt was describing everything more or less as it happened, with the exception of a few scenes where he obviously wasn't present (e.g., Danny and Corinne meeting).

After reading the book, I also watched the movie based on it. It was definitely interesting to watch directly after reading the book (before I forgot any details). Some lines of dialogue are lifted word for word and some scenes are essentially the same. However, there's much that must be compacted for time (for instance, there is only one trial), and there's also some things that are made more Hollywood-friendly (such as a love interest thing going on between the author and Mandy). Some of the more 'extraneous' characters are put into roles that make them more directly involved in the shooting or court case. For instance, Luther is on the jury during the trial in addition to being an eccentric man the author sees at the lunch counter. Also, the Lady Chablis is called up as a witness, for in this version she and Corinne are roommates. A fun part was that the Lady Chablis was played by ... the Lady Chablis. All in all though, it was a faithful enough version of the book and I would recommend it if you haven't seen it yet.

By the by, I mentioned to my face-to-face book club that I was reading this book, and a few people mentioned that his other book City of Falling Angels was also incredibly good.

17sweetiegherkin
març 25, 2018, 1:14 pm

Also, here's a brief article (with some photographs) about Savannah 20 years after the publication of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: http://newsok.com/article/3940980