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 Midnight in the garden of good reading By Monique Bos “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” has long been considered the quintessential Savannah book. Published in 1994, John Berendt’s bestseller chronicles a small society filled with scandal, murder, eccentricity and colorful characters with all sorts of fascinating predilections. However, “The Book” isn’t alone in mythologizing and sometimes de-mythologizing the city. With its unique history and continued appeal to tourists, Savannah has served as a rich background for works of both fiction and nonfiction. Scarlett O’Hara may have preferred Atlanta, but Zelda O’Brien, the fiery heroine of Harry Hervey’s “The Damned Don’t Cry,” is a thorough Savannahian. From her poor childhood in the Old Fort district to a promising position on Factors Walk, encounters with a local serial killer and a seduction at Fort Pulaski, O’Brien can’t escape the hold of a city that rejects and is scandalized by her. This book, originally published in 1939 and recently brought back into print, is surprisingly racy and shocking. It’s also my favorite Savannah read to date, with a spellbinding, soap opera-style narrative about a heroine who is doomed from the first page. Eugenia Price’s novels “Savannah,” “To See Your Face Again,” “Before the Darkness Falls” and “Stranger in Savannah” usher readers through the antebellum period. Price weaves historical characters and events into the story of a fictional family, the Brownings, prominent members of Savannah society. Issues including slavery, the treatment of the Cherokees, the “Pulaski” steamship disaster and secession play into the narratives with a blend of historical accuracy and sentiment. (The slaves, for example, prefer their servitude to freedom, and their masters always treat them with kindness and consideration.) The novels include strong strains of romance and are sometimes cloying, but they do provide a well-detailed portrait of life in Savannah up to and during the Civil War. Also in the romance genre is “Savannah Blues” by Mary Kay Andrews. This light-hearted contemporary novel, a perfect beach read, combines mystery, antiquing and love with the importance of family and tradition in the South. Andrews, who lives in Atlanta, sometimes tries too hard to convey a sense of a city she doesn’t seem to know all that well, but overall, this is a breezy, often funny and sometimes satirical look at life in the Hostess City. For readers interested in fact as well as fiction, “Literary Savannah,” an anthology edited by Patrick Allen, provides a compendium of historical documents, narratives and stories by writers including James Oglethorpe, George Washington, Robert Louis Stevenson, Flannery O’Connor, Henry James, Juliette Gordon Lowe, Johnny Mercer and many others. Those with a supernatural bent might enjoy Margaret Wayt DeBolt’s “Savannah Spectres and Other Strange Tales,” the basis for at least one local ghost tour. The book describes visits by DeBolt and a psychic of her acquaintance to a number of allegedly haunted houses in Savannah and its environs. Nancy Roberts’ “Georgia Ghosts” also includes entertaining accounts of some of the region’s notable ghost stories. Many more books in a number of genres — fiction, cooking, painting, photography, gardening, architecture, history, culture — also have been and continue to be inspired by Savannah. Spend some time delving into the city’s diverse literary tradition this spring and summer, and you might be delighted at what you discover. |
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