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John Berendt

John Berendt Books

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“[Quoting Miss Harty:] "People come here from all over the country and fall in love with Savannah. Then they move here and pretty soon they’re telling us how much more lively and prosperous Savannah could be if we only knew what we had and how to take advantage of it. I call these people ‘Gucci carpetbaggers.”

ChangeSocietyIndividualityProsperityGeorgiaSeparatenessSavannahFashionsCarpetbaggers
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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“He was a nice fellow,” Williams says. “He could be charming. He had his girlfriend, I had mine. But to me, sex is just a natural thing. We’d had sex a few times. Didn’t bother me. Didn’t bother him. I had my girlfriend, and he had his. It was just an occasional, natural thing that happened.” The expressions on the jurors’ faces suggest they do not find this arrangement natural at all.”

SexSexuality
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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“In Treasure Island, Savannah is the place where Captain John Flint, the murderous pirate with the blue face, has died of rum before the story begins. It is on his death bed in Savannah that Flint bellows his last command - "Fetch aft the rum, Darby!" - and hands Billy Bones a map of Treasure Island. "He gave it me at Savnnah," says Bones, "when he lay a-dying." The book has a drawing of Flint's map in it with an X marking the location of the buried treasure.”

Treasure IslandSavannah GeorgiaBilly BonesCaptain John Flint
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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“During slavery, it was thought by some observers that the apparent good cheer of the slaves had something to do with their expectation that the roles would be reversed in the hereafter: They would be the masters, and whites would be their slaves. In the 1960s, the civil rights struggle put a temporary strain on relations, but integration was peaceful on the whole, Since then, Savannah had been governed by moderate whites who made it their business to stay on good terms with the black community. As a result, racial peace was maintained, and blacks remained politically conservative, which is to say, passive. But it was evident that underneath their apparent complacency, Savannah's blacks were beset by an anguish and despair that ran so deep and expressed itself with such violence that it had made Savannah the murder capital of America.”

MurderSlaveryAfrican AmericansRace RelationsSavannah Georgia
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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“Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.”

IfsWantGivingWritingMayBookEndsStoriesRunningPracticeNovelMiddleColorShapesPicksWhat You WantListsDialogueShort StoryEpisodesDiariesIncidentsBeginning Middle And EndVignettes
Author:John Berendt
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“For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”

PeopleWorldWayHas BeensCitiesGreaterGraceGrewPersonalityOrdinaryPlantExtraordinaryResistanceNoiseSavingDistractionInwardGardenerBrillianceNuanceQuirksLushSaving GraceSavannahResistance To ChangeEnclosure
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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