Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
In between trials for murder in jail, at one point in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil we are told of Jim Wilson that he will not accept the idea of his incarceration: ôItÆs a matter of survivalàI hypnotize myself so that, in my own mind at least, I am not hereö (Berendt, 1994, p. 447). If there is one thing I love the most in this novel subtitled ôA Savannah Story,ö is the authorÆs portrayal of Savannah and its inhabitants as living in a world of their own, one where outsiders are not welcome. We see this over and over again in a novel that is populated with a large collection of assorted oddballs from all walks of life. There is the wealthy, new money Wilson, and the wealthy old-money AdlerÆs. There is the black drag-queen Chablis and the cheap street hustler Danny. There is even Minerva, Voodoo Priestess, who leads the narrator through a voodoo ceremony at midnight in a graveyard.
In order to reveal the psyche of Savannah whose inhabitants define their own reality, Berendt employs a number of elements to enrich this story of Savannah. We see that Jim Wilson is honest about himself and others, an eloquent speaker who exhibits disdain for the rigidity of the higher social order even though he is a member of it. We see this when he tells us he is despised for his freedom in comparison to these types, ôWhen people like that see somebody like me, whoÆs never joined their silly pecking order and whoÆs taken great risks and succeeded, they loathe that personàThey donÆt have any say-so over me, and they donÆt like that at all,ö (Berendt, 1994, p. 343).
Berendt uses dialogue to show class divisions and characterization to show the creation of reality by Savannah inhabitants that does not always gel with reality. We see this when Chablis marches down the street halting traffic, ôThe motorists were unaware, of course, that the spectacle they were witnessing was t...