Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Berendt, John. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. New York: Vintage Books. 1999

 

Wikipedia says about Jim Williams: “James Arthur Williams (or Jim Williams) (December 11, 1930 - January 14, 1990) was the only person in the state of Georgia ever to be tried four times for the same crime – the alleged murder of his assistant, Danny Lewis Hansford, on May 2, 1981, in Williams's home, Mercer House.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arthur_Williams)

Tourists still stop at the Mercer House in Savannah, Georgia to satisfy their prurient curiosity about the murder, asking guides where exactly Danny Hansford and Jim Williams were standing when the fatal shots were fired. Various reviews of the visit on TripAdvisor mention that guides to Mercer House don't talk about the murder, possibly because they've been ordered not to do so. Bummer.

            John Berendt's first book is about Jim Williams, an eccentric character credited with much of the restoration of Historic Savannah. Told through the eyes of a writer from New York who spends time in Savannah getting to know the memorable characters that apparently inhabited that city in the 60s, 70s and 80s, this extraordinary book treads the fine line between the novel and non-fiction genres; it reads like a novel but all it's characters can be found in Wikipedia (except for a few, we're told, whose names were changed for different reasons).

            Take Williams himself. He's invented a game called Psycho Dice, a game that illustrates his belief that through the efforts of mind, he can improve his odds in the great gamble that is his life:

 

“It's very simple. You take four dice and call out four numbers between one and six—for example, a four, a three, and two sixes. Then you throw the dice, and if any of your numbers come up, you leave those dice standing on the board. You continue to roll the remaining dice until all the dice are sitting on the board, showing your set of numbers. You're eliminated if you roll three times in succession without getting any of the numbers you need. The object is to get all four numbers in the fewest rolls. (p. 21)”

 

The game foreshadows the bizarre story of Jim Williams' four trials for the murder of Danny Hansford. So strong is Williams' belief that the advantage he has will eventually free him from the tentacles of the court that he wanders through this phase of his life nearly oblivious to his peril, buying antiques by phone from his prison cell at one point, carrying on with enormous Christmas parties at Mercer House when he's out on bail waiting for yet another appeal.

            After a few convictions however, Williams sees fit to enlist the help of one Minerva, a self-styled conjurer whose bag of tricks involves graveyard digs, roots, herbs, hexes and blessings, none of which seem to have any affect on the train of events:

 

“Thomas pulls to a stop at the ship's bow, and Minerva lights the candle and begins to chant. With the red pen, she scribbles phrases from the Bible onto the vellum. When she is done, she cuts the vellum into small squares and sets them on fire one by one. Glowing ashes float around like black snowflakes inside the car.

  'Take these three pieces I ain't burned,' she says to Thomas, 'and tell Mr. Jim to put them in his shoes.' (p. 283)”

 

Minerva wears the purple glasses of her deceased mentor in the occult arts, and is constantly trying to conjure him for numbers to help her win the lottery. A fitting parallel plot to that of the four-times tried, three-times convicted Jim Williams. 

            And then there's The Lady Chablis, the colourful vaudeville transvestite whose self confidence and sheer bravado as a performer in the transgendered night clubs of Georgia remains a legend  to this day. She provides a counterpoint to Jim Williams and the rumours of liaisons with male prostitutes that surround him (Danny Hansford is widely presumed to have been one of them). Here is a character who makes no excuses for his/her sexual uniqueness, in fact, is quoted on her website to have said: “Oh SHIT . . . Land the Plane and Dock the boat, I am THE Lady Chablis and I put Savannah on the map and then took over the world! You love me, you CRAVE me and you LOVE to HATE me. . .” What he/she shares with Jim Williams is the belief that each of them single-handedly “put Savannah on the map.” One might wonder why he/she would be included in the book, but then, how could you leave him/her out??

            Savannah has a unique history as a southern city in that it escaped much of the destruction visited upon most of Georgia by General William Sherman, who is said to have accepted its surrender in November of 1864 and to have sent a telegram to Abraham Lincoln as follows:

“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.”

            Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil persisted on the New York Times bestseller list for four years. It's a great read!