Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (eBook - Adobe EPUB) (eBook)

John Berendt

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Paperback 2009	791	In Stock. 15-18 business days
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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil eBook Description

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Read John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Large Print.

All Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typeface

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.

From the Trade Paperback edition.
"Elegant and wicked.... Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime." -The New York Times Book Review

Excerpts:
From the book
He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning sliverat the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine - he could see out, but you
couldn't see in. We were sitting in the living room of his Victorian house. It was a mansion, really, with fifteen-foot ceilings
and large, well-proportioned rooms. A graceful spiral stairway rose from the center hall toward a domed skylight.
There was a ballroom on the second floor. It was Mercer House, one of the last of Savannah's great houses still in private
hands. Together with the walled garden and the carriage house in back, it occupied an entire city block. If Mercer
House was not quite the biggest private house in Savannah, it was certainly the most grandly furnished. Architectural Digest
had devoted six pages to it. A book on the interiors of the world's great houses featured it alongside Sagamore Hill,
Biltmore, and Chartwell. Mercer House was the envy of house-proud Savannah. Jim Williams lived in it alone.

Williams was smoking a King Edward cigarillo. "What I enjoy most," he said, "is living like an aristocrat without the
burden of having to be one. Blue bloods are so inbred and weak. All those generations of importance and grandeur to
live up to. No wonder they lack ambition. I don't envy them. It's only the trappings of aristocracy that I find
worthwhile - the fine furniture, the paintings, the sliver--the very things they have to sell when the money runs out. And
it always does. Then all they're left with is their lovely manners."

He spoke in a drawl as soft as velvet. The walls of his house were hung with portraits of European and American
aristocrats - by Gainsborough, Hudson, Reynolds, Whistler. The provenance of his possessions traced back to dukes and
duchesses, kings, queens, czars, emperors, and dictators. "Anyhow," he said, "royalty is better."

Williams tapped a cigar ash into a sliver ashtray. A dark gray tiger cat climbed up and settled in his lap. He stroked
it gently. "I know I'm apt to give the wrong impression, living the way I do. But I'm not trying to fool anyone. Years
ago I was showing a group of visitors through the house and I noticed one man giving his wife the high sign. I saw him
mouth the words 'old money!' The man was David Howard, the world's leading expert on armorial Chinese porcelain. I
took him aside afterward and said, 'Mr. Howard, I was born in Gordon, Georgia. That's a little town near Macon. The
biggest thing in Gordon is a chalk mine. My father was a barber, and my mother worked as a secretary for the mine.
My money - what there is of it - is about eleven years old.' Well, the man was completely taken aback. 'Do you know
what made me think you were from an old family,' he said, 'apart from the portraits and the antiques? Those chairs over
there. The needlework on the covers is unraveling. New money would mend it right away. Old money would leave it
just as it is.' 'I know that,' I told him. 'Some of my best customers are old money.'"

I had heard Jim Williams's name mentioned often during the six months I had lived in Savannah. The house was one reason,
son, but there were others. He was a successful dealer in antiques and restorer of old houses. He had been president of
the Telfair Academy, the local art museum. His by-line had appeared in Antiques...

eBook Details

Title:	Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Publisher:	Random House, Inc.
Author:	John Berendt
Edition:	Ebook , EPUB
Language:	English
ISBN:	0307538370-BEEPB
EAN:	9780307538376-BEEPB

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