The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the discussion thread for the Summer 2024 Group Read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in the category Non-Fiction: True Crime. Please post your comments here. This thread is not restricted to those choosing this book for task 20.10, feel free to join in the discussion. Warning- spoilers ahead!

The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.

A note from the moderators: yes, this book was previously a Group Read in 2013, and as a general rule we don't do repeats. Unfortunately, we only noticed the mistake after the polls had been run. In this situation, we felt it best to honour the result of the poll rather than attempt to re-run at short notice with an alternate choice or to simply pick the second placed book.

I've been meaning to read this for ages, so hopefully it works for a few others, too, even though it's a repeat.

I enjoyed the book, but I have mixed feelings about Berendt's writing style. It's polished and evocative but ultimately shallow. He's skilled at painting a scene or sketching a character in only a few sentences, but doesn't ever delve beyond surface level.

Normally that would be a major negative for me - especially in a non-fiction book like this that's supposed to be a dive into a particular, peculiar place - but it works perfectly for this book where an outsider is cordially invited to experience the life of an insular city but never really becomes a part of it.

The actual contents were underdeveloped, but the tone and atmosphere worked perfectly for Savannah in a way that I don't think they would for most places.

I have also been meaning to read this for a long time. This book really felt like reading a novel rather than a nonfiction. I loved the characters. They made me laugh out loud a few times. The characters were definitely the best part of this book. I enjoyed the writing and I think I will check out his book about Venice too.

I have read this book before and have seen the movie many times as it was one of my mother's favorites. However the first time I read it I was not aware it was non-fiction. It reads like fiction and brings out all the tropes of Deep South personalities. But then fact is usually stranger than fiction. I enjoyed this book once again.

I had never heard about this book before the challenge even though the librarian from the library I borrowed it told me this is a classic. It was a very interesting mix of travel, history, and crime mystery. I enjoyed the writing in the chapters about the trial but I found the history and social setting of Savannah chapters a bit shallow and eventually boring. But I am overall happy I discovered this. I saw that there is a movie and a musical that I may watch too!

I read this book probably 10 years ago for my book discussion group and enjoyed it then. It had been enough time that I didn't remember a lot of it. I did watch the movie after the first reading and plan on doing the same when I find a streaming service that has it.

The book makes me want to visit Savannah after reading it.

I first read this probably 20 years ago, or more. I think I enjoyed it more this time, although there seems to be a lot of time spent on setting the scene. I look forward to finding the movie on a streaming service to see how it compares.

Last year we went to Charleston, and Savannah is still on my bucket list, especially after reading this book again.

This is my first time reading True Crime, and I think this has been a good introduction to the genre. The story flowed very well, although it was surprising that there were so many people introduced that kind of only ended up being tangentially related, but maybe the author was setting the scene less for the crime and more for the vibe of the location. The book was published in the 90s, and I struggled most with understanding/remembering the overarching social vibes of the time, since it seemed like the author left us to our own devices for understanding the various levels of prejudice in various areas. In that way, this book hasn't aged well. I also struggled understanding the time setting initially, since background is so heavy at the beginning, and the ages of the characters seemed not to coincide with the perceived timeline. It's also difficult to determine in the beginning whether this is a recounting of past events, or whether this is firsthand account of current events, and where that line is drawn. This gets solved pretty quickly though, as part one becomes more firsthand recounting and that continues into part two. I gave this book three stars since it was confusing and convoluted in spots, and I honestly gave up on remembering who some of the characters were, but it's an interesting read regardless. Being unfamiliar with this genre, I'm not sure if this follows a common voice pattern, or whether there's supposed to be more or less revelation and intrigue, so I can't tell whether this is a good representation of the genre. It very much reads like fiction, so I suspect this may be a genre outlier.