1994
386 pgs.
Adult Nonfiction
Stopped reading in May 8, 2018 after watching the movie and listening AND reading over 200 pages.
Goodreads rating: 3.91 - 186,079 ratings
My rating: 2.5/3ish
Setting: 1990s Savannah, GA
First line/s: "He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine -- he could see out, but you couldn't see in."
My comments: When this book first came out, everyone raved about it so, even though I have an aversion to nonfiction, I tried it. I didn't get very far. Las month, in anticipation of a trip to Savannah, I decided to try it again. This time I listened to it, and I wonder if perhaps I wouldn't liked it better if I had read it. I just didn't care for it. I rented the movie on Amazon shortly before I left...although lots different from the book, I liked it better.
Goodreads synopsis: A sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.
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