Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Review

    After a young man was killed by one of Savannah's elite, a decade of unanswered questions and trials occurred. This piece of nonfiction tells the story of the death and its aftermath in a way reminiscent of a murder mystery novel from the viewpoint of the author who actually experienced everything as it unfolded. Combining the stories of society ladies, young debutantes, a redneck, a recluse, a Southern belle, a drag queen, a con-artist, and a voodoo priestess, this book also depicts the politics of the small, traditional town of Savannah.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    My mom and I had just decided to take a girl's trip to Savannah, Georgia when she heard about this novel. Of course, we both decided that we needed to read it, especially after learning about how prominent it is in Savannah and that you can get tours related directly to the book and its content. As soon as she finished it, I snatched it up and read it right before we left. I will say automatically that, if you ever take a trip to Savannah, I'd definitely give this book a go and then take the tour of Mercer House. There are other, smaller ways that having read this book enhanced the trip as well, so like I said, I'd recommend reading it if you have the time before you go. We also watched the movie that goes by the same name. That was good, but the book was better, so I'd make time for the book instead of going for the faster movie option (though both is even better, haha). Now for the actual review:

    When I was reading the first part of the book, I remember walking out of my room to my mom and asking her if everything ever started connecting. Each chapter was about a new person and had little to no connection to each other. This went on for what felt like a while, so I was starting to wonder when we'd get to the whole premise of the novel: the death. Therefore, if you like things to connect right away, this might not be for you. Though I was surprised by and sometimes a bit bored because of this, I did still enjoy it for the most part. Many of the people were intriguing and others, like Lady Chablis, were entertaining in that they were funny. I guess I also get why the author would include this part of the book; he probably wanted to paint a picture of the town and how it worked before the death so that readers would understand the reaction to the death more. 

    My one criticism other than the disjointedness of the first part of the novel is that the writing was a tad boring sometimes. It felt like the author dragged on at times or wrote climatic parts in an anti-climatic way. This is probably what most caused me not to love the book; after all, I do love a good murder mystery (I want to make it clear that I did enjoy the book overall, though).

    Now that the negatives of the book (from my point of view) have been discussed, we can move on to the positives and end on a happy note. The biggest positive was the second part of the book. This was where the author shined more and connected things. I really liked the way that Berendt revealed everything and stayed true to what actually happened (mostly). The main people (I don't want to say characters since they were/are real life people) carried the novel as well; Berendt did a great job portraying them and their actions. Finally, the event itself was very interesting.

    Overall, I did enjoy the read and would recommend it if you like nonfiction books or murder mysteries. As mentioned in the beginning, I'd definitely read it if you actually go to Savannah. You might have to push yourself through some parts that are slower and deal with disjointedness for around the first quarter-ish of the book, but the story is worth it in the end.

    A quick side note: I wanted to mention some cool things to go and see in Savannah related to this event/book, so I recommend the following- seeing the Bird Girl statue that is on the cover of the novel (it is in a museum now, not the cemetery), visiting Bonaventure Cemetery and the one next to it (I can't remember the name) where you can find the gravestones of two of the main people, taking a tour of Mercer House (where the death happened) though you cannot see the upstairs for safety reasons, and simply walking around downtown and in the historic area (you can see little things mentioned in the book and, in one place, you can see a poster for Lady Chablis).

Rating: 3/5 stars 

Author: John Berendt

Publisher: Vintage

# of Pages: 386 (paperback)

Genre: Nonfiction, Crime, Mystery

Series: Standalone

    One last side note (that has nothing to do with this book or event which is why it's after the review summary, but that I think is really cool) is that you can find the bench from "Forrest Gump" in a museum in Savannah since the bench scenes were filmed in one of the squares. I thought this would be a fun extra bit of information since this film was based off of a book under the same name :)