Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
By John Berendt
While it took me a while to get back to it, I finally had some extra time to finish John Berendt's nonfiction novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. For those of you familiar with the 1997 motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack, you can forget what you think you know.
As a first shot at a book by a New York writer and editor of various magazines chronicling his experience living in Savannah, Georgia during the 1980's, Berendt's writing may only be described as delicious. He lures in his readers from the very first line by ending with the reflective phrasing, "[...] and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine-- he could see out, but you couldn't see in," that resonates with intense characterization. He unfolds his account slowly this way, granting the readers just enough intrigue that they do not know they've been ensnared in the world of 1980's Savannah till the third chapter when he begins introducing them to the most interesting collection of characters.
And that's just the beginning.
As someone with very little experience writing any kind of nonfiction (it's not my forte), my first impression about CNF has always been that truth to the events are divine and with which are not to be tampered. Berendt, it seems, views this idea of truth as more malleable in concept instead of rigid stone, and he takes careful pains to lay out the work in such a manner that it's told entirely out of order, and yet, reads as though there is still truth to be discovered in the mosaic created from deliberate tampering.
While he admits to later fictionalizing earlier pieces of the narrator's account of the events (1981 to 1985), he uses this fiction as a tool to give honesty to the real-life people involved. This serves to extract not only the writer's perspective and interpretation of what happened but also create a space where the readers are privy to vital background information but are not overwhelmed by drawn-out and confusing information dumps.
While Berendt excels at creating this Frankenstein-esque fusion of fiction and nonfiction which gives the reader a first-hand feel for all the joy, curiosity, corruption, and mayhem of the town, knowing this was his tactic also muddies the waters enough to call into question the reliability of the narrator. A few times, I stopped myself wondering how much of it was real and how much Berendt wanted to be real but was not. Is graveyard dirt truly most powerful if collected precisely at midnight? Would people really be so quick to go along with the antics of Joe Odom? And are people that resistant to change?
The final pages were powerful, but they leave me with so many questions that I imagine I'll never be able to answer. As if to reinforce this concept of truth, Berendt even seems to hint at it himself as if he understand his own limitations to fully process his time in Savannah. Quite often, he references inconsistencies tour guides make when reciting facts about Savannah and even a few documented changes specific characters make which are vital to the details of a murder case.
The end result is that, while it successfully proves that the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction are not quite as solid as first perceived and offers a unique experience for those who have never been to Savannah, it eventually leaves the reader with an appetite to know and to understand more. Much in the same way hunger is satisfied only temporarily.
So I would caution anyone interested in this tale to approach it with the mindset of it being mostly true and partly fictitious, if only to lessen the after-ache when the decadent phrasings fade away and leave you with aching curiosity. But I would also highly recommend this to anyone interested in playing around with storytelling, as there is a lot to unpack from this book.
I only hope one day I get around to going to Savannah myself.