It happened to occur to me several days after my Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil post that I think I know what the draw of the story is and why it has been popular.
Sure, there was the murder that still begs a firm reason beyond speculation no matter how rational. And, yes, the story is full of colorful characters, the most obvious being the city of Savannah itself.
But really, when you break it down to its fundamentals, parts of it read much like a Penthouse forum submission. It's a very sexual story, all of it illicit.
The sensuality of Savannah is quite feminine and I suppose that's rather true about much of the south. Hot, humid, lush, dark, gardens fragramt... need I go on? Compare that to the usually frigid north (albeit a different, less pleasant sexual picture) and you can start to see the allusion that can be painted with the descriptives.
Additionally, here is some info re: main characters:
Jim Williams was gay, though he didn't come out and admit it except for during the trials when he testified about sleeping with his assistant and victim, Danny Hansford. I did see an interview a day or two ago where the interviewee (I think it was Dep Kirkland who wrote Lawyer Games: After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) stated that Williams used to pay an assistant to go into the projects and offer money to kids to come to Mercer House for sex play which makes him a pedophile.
Danny Hansford was a male prostitute who would do anyone for money and that's apparently why he "worked" for Jim Williams. But even though he would be gay for pay, Hansford was a hetersexual. There were two sex scenes in the book of Hansford with a girl he had just met. After the second time, which took place in a cemetery, he asked her to marry him. She, of course, refused and this set off one of his rage responses.
Turns out Joe Odom, a major character in the story, was gay as well. It was implied that he and Mandy were a couple, but the real-life person Nancy Hillis negated that by saying Odom was gay. In fact, Odom died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 43.
Joe Goodman, whose name was mentioned a few times, but not much detail had been sexually connected to Jim Williams as well.
Barry Thomas, another fellow who worked for Williams, died of AIDs in 1992.
Let us not forget the Lady Chablis, Empress of Savannah, the flamboyant drag queen who got weekly hormone shots but never had the surgery to finish the transition. He/she showed the author her real breasts that came about by regular estrogen injections.
And it was mentioned that unfaithful spouses were kind of the norm in that society. Infidelity was winked at but never reprimanded.
So, with this strong thread of sexuality woven throughout Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I can only surmise that it's a sex story that includes a murder.
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Since reading the book and writing these blog posts, I watched the movie directed by Clint Eastwood and released in 1997.
As movies usually do (because of the different story-telling format) it took some liberties with the timeline established in the book, which itself also took liberties with the timeline based on actual events.
Where I thought perhaps the movie would visually portray the landscape of the city in depth, in reality, it didn't. The actors all did a fine job, including Kevin Spacey who played Jim Williams.
But I was disappointed by the lack of establishing the atmosphere I thought necessary to fill out the movie. In that regard, it came across as rather flat to me.
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