John Berendt
For a man who wasn’t born in Savannah, John Berendt certainly has an unusually close bond with our city. Maybe that’s because in writing his first novel, he put our city in the spotlight like never before, causing a sharp rise in tourism and enchanting readers with his tale of intrigue set in downtown Savannah.
The book he wrote was Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil and it stayed atop the New York Times Best Seller List for an incredible four years. Even to this day, that record is still intact.
More than 25 years after the novel was first published, Savannah continues to reap the rewards for Berendt’s masterpiece that weaved a true crime drama with eccentric characters that made his book a fascinating read.
Early Life
John Berendt was born in Syracuse, NY in 1940 to Ralph and Carol Berendt. His parents were both writers and, perhaps, the art of crafting words is in his DNA. He was always a lover of words. He majored in English while attending Harvard and headed to New York City after graduation.
Career
For much of the 1960s (1961-1969) he was an associate editor as Esquire Magazine. Later he worked as a writer for the David Frost Show and the Dick Cavett Show. But Berendt loved seeing his words in print and that led him back to the magazine world. This time, as editor. From 1977 to 1979, he had the one of the most cherished jobs in the literally world as editor of the prestigious New York Magazine.
After the 70s transitioned into the 80s, John Berendt found himself working for most of the decade as a columnist back at Esquire. His monthly columns afforded him the ability to travel and by 1983 he came to Savannah.
Berendt arrived a couple of years after the infamous murder of Danny Hanford by the eccentric antiques dealer Jim Williams. He became fascinated with the story and intrigued by the bizarre people he met. The events surrounding the 1981 murder at Mercer House on Monterey Square would be the foundation he used to craft an intriguing true-crime drama in the heart of the south. Readers were captivated with the peculiar characters that Berendt revealed.
After Midight in the Garden of Good & Evil, Berendt waited a decade to publish his follow up novel, The City of Fallen Angels, which was released in 2005 by Penguin Press. That story focused on the eccentric characters he met in Venice in the days after the catastrophic fire that destroyed the historic La Fenice opera house in 1996.
More than a quarter century has passed since the publication of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and its been than fifteen years since The City of Fallen Angels was released. Now more than 80 years old, Berendt will most likely never release another novel. For Savannah, he will never be forgotten.
