{"id":1868,"date":"2014-04-14T08:08:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T12:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1868"},"modified":"2015-08-03T19:26:03","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T23:26:03","slug":"savannah-midnights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1868","title":{"rendered":"**** Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Midnight<\/a>

Savannah (photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

As it seems I\u2019m one of the last people in America to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil<\/i>, John Berendt\u2019s 20-year-old best-seller, I\u2019d heard enough sly references and snippets\u2014especially when the movie (trailer<\/a>) came out–to have a pretty good idea of what I\u2019d encounter in its Historic District (free map<\/a>!). I was not disappointed. While many people gravitated to the over-the-top drag queen, The Lady Chablis, my favorite character was Minerva, the purple-glasses wearing juju expert. Berendt allows that, although his book is nonfiction, he did mess with the time sequence a bit and disguise a few characters who needed a veil of privacy. Savannahians surely know when and who.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t realized Savannah was so geographically and topographically isolated and that its residents used that isolation to their advantage, wanting \u201cnothing so much as to be left alone,\u201d Berendt says. \u201cEvery nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.\u201d It\u2019s sadly ironic, then, that his book has inspired so many tourists<\/a> and Midnight-themed tours.<\/p>\n

And the perfect, related cocktail<\/a>?
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