Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Vintage (ebook), 1994
400 Pages
Publisher’s Site (Author Page)
I borrowed this ebook from my library and read it on my Kobo.
OPENING SENTENCE
He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed moustache, hair turning silver at 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.
REVIEW
This book is based on the real-life murder of Danny Hansford, a male prostate by antiques dealer Jim Williams in the 1980’s. The novel uses real events as a catalyst similar to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood that I read recently.
I chose to read this for the ‘a book with antonyms in the title’ category for my Popsugar Reading Challenge. I love the title and I find the creepy statue on the front cover fascinating. I think I might have read this year’s ago as the books seems familiar but I have no memory of actually reading it.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed some aspects of this novel. I love the title. I liked some things about the setting. I thought some of the characters were fun. I loved Lady Chablis. She was vibrant and so real she almost stepped off the page. That’s about the only good things I have to say about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Berendt’s novel dragged on and on and on and on and fucking on. The actual murder that the novel is supposed to be about doesn’t happen until almost 200 pages in. Until this point is reached I had to wade through pages of drivel about the main character and all the weird and wonder people he meets in Savannah. When Jim Williams is arrested for murder I’d happily have seen every resident in Savannah dead. Don’t even get me started on the four ludicrous murder trials Jim goes through before being found innocent. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil really didn’t work for me.
RATING
