Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction novel by John Berendt. The book, Berendt's first, was published on January 10, 1994, and follows the story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer on trial for the alleged murder of Danny Hansford. Subtitled A Savannah Story, with an initial printing of 25,000 copies,

Berendt combined self-witnessed experiences during his time living in Savannah, Georgia (roughly four years after the shooting), with stories from the preceding years recounted to him by locals; he catches up with proceedings around the book's mid-point. Williams was a free man during Berendt's five years in Savannah. The author took some liberties with his writing, including creating a relationship between Joe Odom (a homosexual) and Nancy Hillis.

The character Serena Dawes was based on silent-film actress and heiress Helen Avis Drexel, while voodoo priestess Valerie Boles was the inspiration for Minerva.

The book was adapted for Clint Eastwood's 1997 film, with several characters' names changed to protect their privacy. Maybe to "protect the innocent," said Sonny Seiler, Williams's attorney, who played the judge in the film. "Well, I don't know how innocent they were, but he didn't change any of the facts." John Lee Hancock wrote the screenplay.

Berendt dedicated "the book", as it became known to Savannahians, to his parents.

Background

Berendt gave the finished manuscript to his agent, Lynn Nesbit, who enjoyed it but said it was "too local" and that no publisher would take a chance on it. She gave the manuscript back to Berendt, who found Suzanne Gluck, another agent. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in January 1994, fourteen months after Berendt finished writing it.

In tone, the book is atmospherically Deep South coastal (Savannah, Georgia, and Beaufort, South Carolina) and Southern Gothic, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities in and around Savannah.

The central narrative concerns the shooting of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute, characterized as "a good time not yet had by all" by Prentiss Crowe, a Savannah socialite. The perpetrator was respected antiques dealer Jim Williams, who was also his employer and casual sexual partner. Hansford's death resulted in four murder trials, with the final one 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's version of the killing, which is that it was in "self-defense"—the result of Hansford, who was prone to fits of rage, shooting at Williams with a gun that was on display, and Williams shooting back to protect himself—and not murder, pre-meditated or otherwise, by Williams. The shooting occurred in Williams's Mercer House home, the ground floor of which is now a museum. "He was available to me and very cooperative," Berendt said in 2015.

thumb|[[Joe Odom House|16 East Jones Street, the "Joe Odom House"]]

In the first chapter, Berendt and Williams are interrupted by Hansford's screaming entrance; this happened prior to Williams and Berendt's first meeting. died in 1974, over twenty years before the book's release.

Regarding the high number of eccentric characters in Savannah, Berendt's belief is that it is because gossip was so important during his time in the city. "People in Savannah gossip more than anywhere else," he said. "What do people gossip about? Other people's behavior. The stranger the behavior, the better the gossip. The person that is being gossiped about knows they are being appreciated and attempts to outdo themself on the strangeness."

In 2024, Berendt stated that he believed Williams was guilty of murder.

Title

thumb|[[Bonaventure Cemetery]]

As explained in chapter 18 of the book, its title alludes to the hoodoo notion of "midnight," the period between the time for good magic (11:30pm to midnight) and the time for evil magic (midnight to 12:30am). where Dr. Buzzard, the common-law partner of folk-magic practitioner Minerva, is buried. It is over his grave that Minerva performed the incantations to ensure a more successful result in the retrial for the case of Jim Williams. (The marriage between Minerva and Dr. Buzzard was the invention of John Berendt. Dr. Buzzard was based on Stephen Robinson, who died in 1947, aged 61 or 62.)

Cover

The Bird Girl statue, designed both as art and as a birdseed holder, was originally located in 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. Owing 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.

Legacy

In 1993, the year before the book's publication, Savannah had five million visitors, who spent almost $600 million during their time in the city. Two years after the book's release, Savannah was seeing a 46% increase in tourism.

Dorothy Kingery, Jim Williams's sister, did not like the book. "She kept everything hush-hush," explained Sonny Seiler, the Williams family attorney, "but now she lets tourists go through Mercer–Williams House. But they cannot talk about the unpleasantness or what went on in that study on the first floor."

Awards

The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize and Lambda Literary Award and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction.

Audiobook

Jeff Woodman recorded the audiobook version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He stated that Berendt's effort, along with that of Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, was the most challenging to record: "Especially because all the characters in Midnight have the same damned Savannah accent, so you can't toss in a little North Country<!-- This is apparently not a reference to northern U.S. dialects. In the cited interview, Woodman is asked about his favorite dialect, and his response is "Yorkshire/North Country", so the comment quoted here seems to be a humorous throwback to that. --> to help differentiate them!" he said in 2010.

References

  • Identifying First Editions, Pt. 2 at the Independent Online Booksellers Association – Explains Random House's "First Edition" statement and number line convention for identifying printings, with commentary from Random House itself.
  • First edition identification by publisher (G–S) at QB Books – Covers Random House's printing identification system, including letter codes used for printings beyond the 10th.
  • John Berendt on Good Morning America (January 12, 1994) YouTube.com
  • "Savannah's Midnight Miracle: Celebrating 30 years of 'The Book' that changed the Hostess City" WJCL News, 2025

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