183. MIDNIGHT in the GARDEN of GOOD and EVIL

John Berendt 1994

In the center of this novel is a very informative and tantalizing view of Savannah, Georgia. When the author, originally from New York decided to spend time in Savannah as his experiment in bi-urban living, he ends up loving the place and staying for eight years. During his stay, he followed the multiple trials of wealthy antiques dealer Jim Arthur Williams who was accused of killing Danny Hansford, a young man of questionable character at his residence, the now famous Mercer House. As a high-profile resident of Savannah, his trials attracted everyone's attention over many years. There are a lot of unforgettable and eccentric characters in this book, but most memorable are Lady Chablis, a drag queen, and Minerva, a voodoo priestess, two women with distinct eccentric personalities that livened up the plot so much, you will have to constantly remind yourself that, yes, you are reading a true story.

'He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed moustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine -- he could see out, but you couldn't see in.'(opening lines)

Jim Arthur Williams

 (photo from Google search - Website trutv.com)



'Jim Williams's Christmas party was, in the words of the Georgia Gazette, the party that Savannah socialites "lived for." Or lived without for Williams enjoyed changing his guest list from year to year. He wrote names on file cards and arranged them in two stacks: an In stack and an Out stack. He shunted the cards from one stack to the other and made no secret of it. If a person had displeased him in any way during the year, that person would do penance come Christmas. "My Out stack," he once told the Gazette, "is an inch thick."'(8)

'These, then, were the images in my mental gazetteer of Savannah: rum-drinking pirates, strong-willed women, courtly manners, eccentric behavior, gentle words, and lovely music. That and the beauty of the name itself: Savannah.'(27)

Mercer William House is now a museum

"Oh, that's a lovely song," said Emma. "Kurt Weil, 1941." She played it, and from that time on, Emma always played "my Ship" whenever I came into the bar. "Bartenders know customers by the drinks they order," she said. "I know them by the songs they ask me to play. Whenever regulars walk in the door, I like to play their favorites. It tickled them and makes them feel they're home."(82)

'Traffic on Congress Street slowed to a crawl in order to take in the glittering procession. The air was filled with honks and whistles and shouts in a mixture of good-natured cheer and lusty derision. The motorists were unaware, of course, that the spectacle they were witnessing was that of the Grand Empress of Savannah parading every wig, gown, and gaff in her imperial wardrobe. Chablis waved to her subjects. "Sistuh's movin' out!" she shouted.'(123)

'At this point in my experiment in bi-urban living, I found myself spending more time in Savannah than New York. The weather alone would have been reason enough for the tilt. By late April, New York was still struggling to free itself from the clutches of winter, and Savannah was well into the unfolding pageantry of a warm and leisurely spring. Camellias, jonquils, and paperwhites had bloomed in December and January. Wisteria and redbuds had followed, and then in mid-March the azaleas burst forth in gigantic pillows of white, red, and vermilion. White dogwood blossoms floated like clouds of confectioner's sugar above the azaleas. The scent of honeysuckle, Confederate jasmine, and the first magnolia blossoms were already beginning to perfume the air. Who needed the chill of New York?'(166)

Savannah Historic District

 (photo from Google search -   Design2share website)

"Okay. Now, you know how dead time works. Dead time lasts for one hour -- from half an hour before midnight to half an hour after midnight. The half-hour before midnight is for doin' good. The half hour after midnight is for doin' evil." ... "Seems like we need a little of both tonight," said Minerva, "so we best be on our way. Put the paper in your pocket where the dimes is, and take your bottle of water. We goin' to the flower garden"(245)

'Dr. Lindsley told me that an old house will defeat you if you try to restore it all at once -- from roof to windows, weatherboarding, jacking it up, central heating, wiring. You must think of doing one thing at a time. ... You must do it in sections, because that's the way it was built. And then suddenly you find the whole thing completed. Otherwise, it will defeat you.'(297)

'I, too , had become enchanted by Savannah. But after having lived there for eight years, off and on, I had come to understand something of its self-imposed estrangement from the outside world. Pride was part of it. Indifference was too, and so was arrogance. But underneath all that, Savannah had only one motive: to preserve a way of life it believed to be under siege from all sides.'(384-385)

'Savannah spurned all suitors -- urban developers with grandiose plans and individuals (the "Gucci carpetbaggers," as Mary Harty called them) who moved to Savannah and immediately began suggesting ways of improving the place, Savannah resisted every one of them as if they had been General William Tecumseh Sherman all over again. Sometimes that meant throwing up bureaucratic roadblocks; at other times it meant telling tourists only what was good for them to know. Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone.'(385)

First Vintage Books Edition, July 1999
386 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
Book idea from JRMD, thanks!!

169. IN COLD BLOOD

Truman Capote 1965

The scariest part of reading this true-crime masterpiece (credited to have started the genre of investigative journalism) is the fact that it IS non-fiction and therefore, a mind boggling reminder that truly evil people do exist around us. On one ordinary day, November 15, 1959, the safety and tranquility of the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, ceases to exist forever. Two ex-convicts, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, in search of easy money, brutally murder the innocent Clutter family --devoted husband and successful farmer, Herb, his fragile wife, Bonnie, and their innocent teenage children,  Nancy and Kenyon.

'The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West.'(opening lines)

'Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans -- in fact, few Kansans -- had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there. The inhabitants of the village, numbering two hundred and seventy, were satisfied that this should be so, quite content to exist inside ordinary life -- to work, to hunt, to watch television, to attend school socials, choir practice, meetings of the 4-H club. But then, in the earliest hours of that morning in November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal nightly Holcomb noises -- on the keening hysteria of coyotes, the dry scrape of scuttling tumbleweed, the racing, receding wail of locomotive whistles. At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them -- four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But afterward the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and again -- those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers.'(5)

'Perry described a murder, telling how, simply for "the hell of it," he had killed a colored man in Las Vegas -- beaten him to death with a bicycle chain. The anecdote elevated Dick's opinion of Little Perry; he began to see more of him, and like Willie-Jay, though for dissimilar reasons, gradually decided that Perry possessed unusual and valuable qualities. Several murderers, or men who boasted of murder or their willingness to commit it, circulated inside Lansing; but Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity, " a natural killer" -- absolutely sane, but conscienceless, and capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows. It was Dick's theory that such a gift could, under his supervision, be profitably exploited.'(54-55)

'If there's somebody loose around here that wants to cut my throat, I wish him luck. What difference does it make? It's all the same in eternity. Just remember: If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across the ocean, by the time he got tham all on the other side, that would only be the beginning of eternity.'(69)

"Around here," according to the proprietor of one Garden City hardware store, "locks and bolts are the fastest-going item. Folks ain't particular what brand they buy; they just want them to hold." Imagination, of course, can open any door -- turn the key and let terror walk right in. Tuesday, at dawn, a carload of pheasant hunters from Colorado -- strangers, ignorant of the local disaster -- were startled by what they saw as they crossed the prairies and passed through Holcomb: windows ablaze, almost every window in almost every house, and in brightly lit rooms, fully clothed people, even entire families, who had sat the whole night wide awake, watchful, listening. Of what were they frightened? "It might happen again." That, with variations, was the customary response.'(88)

'But Herb was gone. And Bonnie too. Her bedroom window overlooked the garden, and now and then, usually when she was "having a bad spell," Mr. Helm had seen her stand long hours gazing into the garden, as though what she saw bewitched her. ("When I was a girl," she had once told a friend, "I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tired. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough...')'(121-122)

'There is no shame -- having a dirty face -- the shame comes when you keep it dirty.'(140)

'Prognosis: correspondence between you and your sister cannot serve anything but a purely social function. Keep the theme of your letters within the scope of her understanding. Do not unburden your private conclusions. Do not put her on the defensive and not permit her to put you on the defensive. Respect her limitations to comprehend your objectives, and remember that she is touchy towards the criticism of your Dad. Be consistent in your attitude towards her and do not add anything to the impression she has that you are weak, not because you need her good-will but because you can expect more letters like this, and they can only serve to increase your already dangerous anti-social instincts.'(145)

'"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." -- Said by Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot Indian Chief.

This last entry was written in red ink and decorated with a border of green-ink stars; the anthologist wished to emphasize its "personal significance." "A breath of a buffalo in the wintertime" -- that exactly evoked his view of life. Why worry? What was there to "sweat about"? Man was nothing, a mist, a shadow absorbed by shadows.'(147)

'Cullivan probed, trying to gauge the depth of what he assumed would be Perry's condition. Surely he must be experiencing a remorse sufficiently profound to summon a desire for God's mercy and forgiveness? Perry said, "Am I sorry? If that's what you mean -- I'm not. I don't feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers me a bit. Half an hour after it happened, Dick was making jokes and I was laughing at them. Maybe we're not human. I'm human enough to feel sorry for myself.'(291)

First Vintage International Edition, February 1994

343 pages

Book owned

Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

128. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Frank W. Abagnale 1980
with Stan Redding

An intriguing memoir of Frank W Abagnale, outlining his life as the ultimate fake and con man. As I read his life story as a swindler and check forger, posing his way as a pilot, a pediatrician, a lawyer, an author and whatever else he needs to be to amass thousands of dollars, I found myself in a dilemna: hate his guts or admire him? And it doesn't help that I so thoroughly love the movie and Frank's character as played by Leonardo di Caprio, and that in the book, unlike the movie, he did actually pay for his crime in the most horrid inhumane way at a French prison, and that he ultimately turned his life around and is instrumental in revamping bank and secure-document safety by working with the FBI Financial Crimes unit. I am still left with the nagging question:  in this book, in Frank's life, does crime pay?

'A man's alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself. The mirror in my room in the Windsor Hotel in Paris reflected my favorite image of me -- a darkly handsome young airline pilot, smooth-skinned, bull-shouldered and immaculately groomed. Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues.'(opening lines)

'Someone once said there's no such thing as an honest man. He was probably a con man.'(13)

'The baby had lost his doleful look. No one is really certain if newborn infants have thoughts or are aware of what is going on around them.  No one but me, that is. That kid knew I was a phony. I could see it in his face.'(95)

'The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) did not exist as a police tool during the period. Had I had to contend with the computerized police link, with its vast and awesome reservoir of criminal facts and figures, my career would probably have been shortened by years. And lastly, I was pioneering a scam that was so implausible, so seemingly impossible and so brass-balled blatant that it worked.'(62-63)

'And all day long I'd go around feeling like Hippocrates in my hypocrite's mantle.'(83)

'I hadn't even finished high school and had yet to step on college campus, but I was a certified lawyer! However, I regarded my actual lack of academic qualifications merely a technicality, and in my four months of legal cramming I'd learned the law is full of technicalities. Technicalities are what screw up justice.'(105)

'I have since learned something about Harvard men. They're like badgers. They like to stick together in their own barrows. A lone badger is going to find another badger. A Harvard man in a strange area is going to find another Harvard man. And they're going to talk about Harvard.'(108)

'The former police chief of Houston once said of me: "Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it 'U.R. Hooked' and cash it at any back in town, using a Hong Kong driver's license for identification."(116)

'The transaction also verified a suspicion I had long entertained: it's not how good a check looks but how good the person behind the check looks that influences tellers and cashiers.'(120)

'A con artist's only weapon is his brain.'(129)

'I learned later that I was the first check swindler to use the routing number racket. It drove bankers up the wall. They didn't know what the hell was going on. They do now and they owe me.'(156)

'Four months after taking up residence in Montpellier, I learned a bitter truth: when the hounds have help, there is no safe place for a fox to hide.'(221)

First Broadway Book movie tie-in edition 2002
277 pages
Book owned

63. the DEVIL in the WHITE CITY

Erik Larson 2003

An incredible work of non-fiction about a parallel occurrence at the end of the 19th century, told in alternating format: the struggle of Chicago's architects and planners to show the world an innovative, magical and successful World's Trade Fair and the evils and madness of a serial killer, H. H Holmes, written in a very informative and absorbing way.

'The date was April 14, 1912, a sinister day in maritime history, but of course, the man in suite 63-65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it... The man was Daniel Hudson Burnham, and by now his name was familiar throughout the world. He was an architect and had done his work pretty well in Chicago, New York, Washington, San Francisco, Manila, and many other cities.'(3)


'Millet was never far from Burnham's mind, nor was the event that had brought them together: the great Chicago world's fair of 1893. Millet had been one of Burnham's closest allies in the long, bittersweet struggle to build the fair.'(4)

'A thousand trains a day entered or left Chicago. many of these trains brought single young women who had never ever seen a city but now hoped to make one of the biggest and toughest their home.'(11)

'And in Chicago a young handsome doctor stepped from a train, his surgical valise in hand. He entered a world of clamor, smoke, and steam, refulgent with the scents of murdered cattle and pigs. He found it to his liking.'(12)

'Holmes had been to Chicago before, but only for brief visits. The city impressed him, he said later, which was surprising because as a rule nothing impressed him, nothing moved him. Events and people captured his attention the way moving objects caught notice of an amphibian: first a machinelike registration of proximity, next a calculation of worth, and last a decision to act or to remain motionless. (37)


'He put up a new sign: H.H. Holmes Pharmacy. As word spread that a young, handsome, and apparently unmarried doctor now stood behind the counter, an increasing number of single women in their twenties began to patronize the store. They dressed nicely and brought things they did not need.'(46)

'Ellsworth insisted that what Chicago had in mind was something far grander than even the Paris exposition. He described for Olmsted a vision of a dream city designed by America's greatest architects and covering an expanse at least one-third larger than the Paris fair.'(49)

'He was the smoothest man I ever saw."said C.E.Davis, whom Holmes had hired to manage the drugstore's jewelry counter. Creditors, Davis said, would "come here raging and calling him all the names imanginable, and he would smile and talk to them and set up the cigars and drinks and send them away seemingly his friends for life. I never saw him angry. You couldn't have trouble with him if you tired.'(72)

'He argued that Chicago's fair, unlike any other before it, would be primarily a monument to architecture. It would awaken the nation to the power of architecture to conjure beauty from stone and steel.'(80)

'The furnace man examined the kiln. He saw that it contained an inner chamber of firebrick constructed in a manner that kept flames from reaching the interior, and he noted the clever addition of two openings in the top of the inner box that would allow gases from the box to flow into the surrounding flames, where they would then be consumed. It was an interesting design and seemed likely to work, although he did observe to himself that the shape of the kiln seemed unsuited to the task of bending glass.'(92)

'For the police there were warnings of a different sort-- letters from parents, visits from detectives hired by parents--but these were lost in the chaos. Vanishment seemed a Chicago pastime.'(102)

'How is it possible that this vast amount of construction, greatly exceeding that of the Paris Exhibition of 1889, will be ready in two years.'(119)



'He removed the apron and rolled down his sleeves. The chloroform and his own intense arousal made in him feel light-headed. The sensation, as always, was pleasant and induced in him a warm languor, like the feeling he got after sitting too long in front of a hot stove.'(149)

'But not a tower, he said. Towers were not original. Eiffel had built a tower already. "Mere bigness" wasn't enough either. "Something novel, original, daring and unique must be designed and built if American engineers are to retain their prestige and standing.'(156)

'There would be miracles at the fair--the chocolate Venus de Milo would not melt, the 22,000 pound cheese in the Wisconsin Pavilion would not mold--but the greatest miracle was the transformation of the grounds during the long soggy night that had preceded Cleveland's arrival.'(236)

'The first guests began arriving at Holmes's World's Fair Hotel, though not in the volume he and every other South Side hotelier had expected... His guest rooms began to fill with women, most quite young and apparently unused to living alone. Holmes found them intoxicating.'243)

'Despite its incomplete exhibits, rutted paths, and stretches of unplanted ground, the exposition revealed to its early visitors a vision of what a city could be and ought to be. The Black City to the north lay steeped in smoke and garbage, but here in the White City of the fair visitors found clean public bathrooms, pure water, an ambulance service, electric streetlights, and a sewage-processing system that yielded acres of manure for farmers.(247)


'The shared color, or more accurately the shared absence of color, produced an especially alluring range of effects as the sun traveled the sky. In the early morning, when Burnham conducted his inspections, the building were a pale blue and seemed to float on a ghostly cushion of ground mist. Each evening the sun colored the buildings ochre and lit the motes of dust raised by the breeze until the air itself became a soft orange veil.'(252)

'Ferris had created more than simply an engineering novelty. Like the inventors of the elevator, he had conjured an entirely new physical sensation.'(270)


'The secrets of Holmes's castle eventually did come to light, but only because of the persistence of a lone detective from a far-off city, grieving his own terrible loss.'(336)



First Vintage Books edition, 2004
390 pages
Book borrowed from BSM
Pictures from google images search