Classics Corner: Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt; True Southern Gothic Tale is Filled With Eccentric Characters and a Sense of Place

Classics Corner: Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt; True Southern Gothic Tale is Filled With Eccentric Characters and a Sense of Place

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: It is hard to treat Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as a nonfiction book. It is a true story with real people and involves a real crime: The shooting of hustler, Danny Hansford by his older on-and-off lover, antiques dealer, Jim Williams. But it is not written like a non-fiction book filled with dry facts, statistics, and interviews, court reports, and newspaper articles about the shooting and the people involved.

Instead Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil reads like a novel, a nonfiction novel. Like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Alex Haley’s Roots, and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil uses various literary techniques such as setting, plot, characterization, and dialogue to tell it's story and does it very well. It turns a true crime into a Southern Gothic story.




Author John Berendt really made Savannah, Georgia come to life in his book. He described the beautiful antebellum houses, the humid atmosphere, and the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world (because at the time, traveling to Savannah was hard except by crossing one bridge.) expertly. He also recounted Savannah's history and transformation from the pirate’s den in Treasure Island, to the “Grand Old Southern Lady” of Gone With The Wind, to its then reputation as a place that was so caught up in tradition that it's residents refused to let Big Businesses move in. This book no doubt did wonders to Savannah's tourism and if Berendt's characterization of the locals is anything to go on, it was probably not a good thing.




Besides the setting, Berendt perfectly wrote the residents of Savannah as a group of eccentric oddballs. Everyone had so many unique quirks and characteristics that one must wonder if a phrase is written in Savannah's bylaws stating “Thou must be eccentric to reside in these city limits.”

There is Luther Driggs, an amateur chemist who hinted that he created a poison that he could pour into Savannah's water supply and kill everyone. (The real-life inspiration behind Driggs said that though he was an amateur chemist, he created no such thing and blamed Berendt for giving him such a reputation.) Emma Kelly, a pianist who was known as “The Lady of Six Thousand Songs” and who knew and played everyone's favorite song. Joe Odom, an attorney owned Sweet Georgia Brown, a piano bar with Mandy Nichols, a lovely lady that Odom forever promised to make “his third wife.” Sonny Seiler, a defense attorney who was so devoted to the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team that he owned a pit bull, Uga IV (there were three previous Ugas) that became the team’s unofficial mascot. Then there's Lady Chablis, a saucy drag performer who called herself “The Grand Empress if Savannah.” She enjoyed flirting with Berendt and making herself the center of attention, including in one memorable moment crashing a debutante ball of Savannah's African-American elite much to Berendt's embarrassed chagrin.




Standing in the center of this cast of fascinating weirdos was Jim Williams. The 52-year-old antiques dealer loved giving the impression of coming from old money by showing off his collection of antiques and buying the house built by songwriter Johnny Mercer’s great-grandfather. When asked if he minded being called “nouveau riche”, Williams said that “it's the riche that's the important part.”




Williams also went to extremes to stand out in the crowd. During the filming of a TV movie about Abraham Lincoln, Williams draped a Nazi flag over his house to ruin the shot and to protest the anger that Savannah's residents had about movies being filmed there with the constant changes to location and the often pushy cast and crew. Williams was also known for his Christmas parties which were the highlight of the year so much that people worried throughout the year whether they would be put in his “In” box or “Out” box.

Williams also loved to show off his collection of rare weapons and guns as though daring to be shot. This revealed a certain sense of danger in Williams, almost a death wish.




This sense of danger probably explained Williams’ relationship with 21-year-old hustler, Danny Hansford. Hansford was an Eighth grade dropout with a hair trigger temper and who was described by a former girlfriend as a “Walking streak of sex.” He also did odd jobs for Williams and was implied to be his lover. When Hansford entered the Williams home, it was almost a guarantee that he would be drunk, lose his temper, fight with Williams, and break something of his. Williams’ sense of danger did not seem to mind Hansford's temper, in fact seemed to enjoy it, until one night when after a fight, Williams shot Hansford to death.




Williams was arrested and charged with murder, though he claimed it was self-defense because Hansford threatened to shoot him.Thus began his trial or rather trials. Williams’ case was given four separate trials each time because of technicalities or legal issues. The miscarriages of justice are present throughout the trials as Williams,found guilty during the first three trials,looked for any reason to reopen the case. There is also a sense of fatigue as the trials go on leading to the possibility that Williams was acquitted the fourth time so they wouldn't have to go through the case again.




Williams not only used legal means to gain victory, he used supernatural means. He contacted Minerva, a voodoo priestess, to provide him good luck and to curse the prosecuting attorney. In one of the most memorable passages in the book, Minerva, Williams, and Berendt visited a cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina where Minerva used her abilities to not only hex the attorney but to get the spirit of Hansford to lay off of Williams by getting Williams to admit good things about the young man. Williams responded by mentioning Hansford's Camaro, artistic talent, and sense of humor.




An even creepier passage occurs later in the book after Williams was acquitted. Minerva and Berendt went to another cemetery to speak to “the head man” that Minerva suspected was “working against Williams from beyond the grave”: none other than Danny Hansford. Minerva begged and argued with Hansford's spirit to leave Williams alone but the spirit continued to laugh at Minerva so she gave up in frustration.




Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil stretches nonfiction by offering an account that is so bizarre that it seems like it couldn't have happened in real life. But it did, with all of its weirdness, bizarre cast, and unique situations. The final irony gives an almost literary twist to this strange story: Shortly after his acquittal, Jim Williams suffered a fatal heart attack right in the study where he and Hansford had their final confrontation and in the exact spot where Hansford would have shot Williams if Williams hadn't shot him. You just can't make things like this up.