A Word on Words; 2303; John Berendt

a word on worker program delving into the world of books and their office this week john kerry talks about midnight in the garden of good and evil your host for a word and words mr john c compiler chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university in oregon single once again welcome to world war and we had a great report and the author of a phenomenal that's so john berendt welcome the world it's great maybe to talk with you about the midnight in the garden that needle a story the story of savannah the cover so says quiet decadence to me and so many other things to other people i wonder if you had gone through any other city in america spent a nine month low become

embroiled in an art film the life of a new interactive with league personnel are sought out in part as whether there isn't a similar story some stores were selling everything will there is and that is that for how probably the secret because of the success of his surprise success the thing about savannah that makes this book for me so special i think for the readers is that it's a unique i mean it's so isolated very harsh quiet city on the coast of georgia and its isolated by geography because it's surrounded by pine ii when some marshes but it's also isolated by choice they don't want to have anything to do with the outside world so it's it's this insulated pipes it down companies want to go there and look at the city fathers turn a cold shoulder john carlo menotti one of the

rings but usaid to savannah and they didn't get many helpful so he ended up in charleston so it's this little community has no background as there is a new york minute marvel's characters in new york city just as much a book about but has all that background noise in savannah does a hushed listeners with very quiet the the atmosphere is soft vegetation is very rich and beautiful sun is setting a spectacular for the story that i've told and characters against this backdrop one of watford impatient quiet isolation that they become larger than life size they took on larger life he attended a call to humans and what they're not animals i mean they are humans were in the final four years i mean i am i am i must down by how you

caught me there and this need to jim you take me in the merger house and then i can't get out of savannah i cannot escape some out until you have finished telling me everything northampton and you tell it you just won an ego after another i guess we'll talk about those sell for sell them are with are forming in minutes and so this is the main character the main character of the cause as we find later in the book at the problem having learned that sometimes and he and he has this wonderful half and he's been very lucky and money that novel of thousand and he we'll talk about

him lives was very bright self made man he was an antiques dealer he was born not in savannah but in middle georgia not far away on a very small move to savannah made his fortune moved into one grammar house that you know they are also working with you renee is fortunes improve his calling cards got coriander and grander and finding great about a lot he ended up in mercer has a beautiful mansion built by johnny mercer racial equality about how we just set johnny mercer the songwriter who wrote the people scrape or a quality intimate all the great span of his great grandfather who was a civil war general build the house but never actually lived in them because the war intervened and the john barnes derby a wave of beautiful mansion most sumptuous and savannahs delivered by pride by private them and humans live alone it was going to

be occupied entire is a city block including a courtyard in the carriage house of a loved one anyhow all the architectural digest have done an article about the house and wins and wins gave the young the party of the year a christmas invited all the cream of society they prayed to be invited invited one year would not a short anybody being about the next year because if they did anything that displeased to take them off the potential is to do penance come but he had this great arrogant is a wonderful storyteller he was a great wit in a slightly mid level area that's slightly sinister hanson well we're quite a figure of a dramatic figure in savannah enjoyed being the king of the castle he murders then hands him until he shoots again sam or not that's it a job interview with a young rough hewn jim williams is

fifty dna hansford was twenty and they were friends is a bubble such relationship and their terms of office and also work for the germans they were the study of mercer house one night and an argument and according to jim williams then he has grabbed a german luger and fire quite adamant best accordion had her movements of all out to protect himself against invaders both foreign and domestic there are some elements is not a typical of their voices in the upper arm and then since he missed twice gave wings time to get his own gun out of the drawer and thin and healthy this attorney said it was murder didn't happen that way and that wins had fired first and then got the gun fake the shots from getting answers there were there were four trials rather spectacular twists and turns i'm sorry conviction to convey to elections among the hunter and then learn about one at the peripheral

vision the test of time and a big mistake saying after three trials and convictions one one hundred and one for one against va said it was thirty its been thirty five to one and just turned to the website every trial exists on its own and you go into a trial even if in the fourth trial you must not ever grow you know referred to be fraught prior the disposition of kit that made a few blunders like the filing last guys and humans was so frayed and six months later he died but janet williams says cases simply stayed with a device a story through which i looked at savannah city to one of a ripple among its a one of a vehicle because we don't find out about mr gwynne well into the life of them on the life of the mamas and the other characters include for

instance the man who wants an invisible dog up and doubles is a very good reason for doing a charming when he was a lovely man a man who was an inventor who's trying to figure out a way to make gold fish glow in the dark sell the river was made love to owners of bars you with you know with fish tanks and gophers looking for drum kennedy recreation area it also works in an insect testing poisons kill insects and he also it's known that he has a bottle of forces are political every man la portland thriller billy and an image of the world war ii when you know he just sent me a picture of the show to me about it and he sent me a color photograph of the actual bomb would have available and they pose another photograph of him and his lab set his white lab coat holding the ball so i didn't have to you know eat you you say that you i'm out of a

sense of decency and using the author's florida they use pseudonyms in some cases and i wanted to jordan is now you'll live joe's room and then you real then i change manhattan art but she is she at mandiant joe owens girlfriend she lives in in this great house hamilton turner house in jordan lebanon illegally and among other yes exactly turn victims into it and she covers all sign outside says mandy's house two or six dollars as i've mentioned the gardening but midnight she's eyeing the widely known as she hassled and you tell the imam in what happens is that you know offers durant signing books and but what happens with this book in savannah as the various bookstores

invite characters in the book a summit with the mansion want someone paid to come for a joint signing and all the characters are lined up they look at nine of the time and they signed oaths and the funny thing is that people in savannah all think their votes to the store or the bottom there and they'll wait patiently for four hours that the barbers sign it possibly so that happens to be in the bailout if they're in the book before the book and the people weren't very much for our concerts or if it would be a sensational but now that it's out and even though its about all the strange character growing plants about yes but what happen is that they can tell i love is strange historical archives that says a lot about him or even if we're here poison the arm and blackjack and

certainly not mainstream american tourism of coal's gone up something like thirty percent yeah nothing interesting to me is that the two buses as you described come by mercer house and they and then this crime this is the house where johnny mercer is he offered to buy it for a phenomenal lee and jackie onassis off a two million dollars early on use of a second record straight on him told to put you on the line now and mercer has come back than he has been in the house that he did visit and they look at his and his marriage a box of cargo bao then radio began the morale began morale you know so many characters there and i attempted to throw one

another very funny because i i i do talk about the characters a lot nowadays ask about mr morales has a wonderful big yemen were all live to be ninety five years old she was a battle ax somebody said the images of his inability to the table she wouldn't at dinner parties and she would go in the kitchen and had like the refrigerators and help couldn't get food while during the courses you go into the into the kitchen and unlike and reluctant the refrigerator during the mail m she'd be constantly getting up and going and going to the kitchen to do this she also she was quite a domineering mum and she i was the largest stockholder and savannah bank and one time a crust officer caller upper master common sign some papers she said i will come their intended that don't want to be kept waiting she she drove into the skin to johnson square she was at the wheel of her mercedes limousine her age her liver chauffeur was cowering back

she never let him go in that one because he had a german shepherd on this seat next and she came to it slow down in front of the savannah bank ad but not quite to become quite come to a stop and the first officer was waiting by the curved she lowered the window and he's trotting along any favors in tucson and driving never stop coming to a stop and thank goodness i can't stop the car you never call but honestly about human emotion about two hours jon stewart it's very frustrating they are very happy that the book is out because they were never allowed to tell the story of the shooting the murder case involving reserve now they've got is that this book is that they have to go and they come up to me and it's that you certainly haven't live an hour two hours we can always mention the book and want to know where this and that happened we can also given the historic stores but we give them the thought from your book out by the same token i was sitting in in miners were just last week doing some

city coverage at a tour bus pulled into the square was a long trawling kind of box and pulled around in it in front of mercer house so i i said to the camera with calls from the boy said so i could hear the woman on that left bigger mentioned midnight in the garden of middle managers that johnny mercer who lived in the house are not true and that he he was the world is one of soliciting chattanooga choo choo which he wrote he wrote as the peak in the senate for its air and hoagy carmichael wrote that right off and johnny mercer life winds up who knows that our love is unfair to do it by the twentieth time it happened he just i said that what it that they had been held since to recognize your new book rush off the bus and then you're all they didn't but in savannah i must say this doesn't happen anywhere

where i can walk run for mayor i walked on the status of that and people come up to me to come off of his very pleasant and very pleased with the book has impacted savannah now thought they emigrated leopold league was huge and the eleven one of automation but liu is a quiet power and not he couldn't get elected mayor you get the black vote but it couldn't get those lee adler is very well known not just to savannah but nationally for historic preservation he is he put together what call a revolving fund that the banks and various other donors they put two hundred thousand dollars into tv in the early sixties they use that money to buy houses that would just about to be torn down historic old crumbling house and buy them and term iraq and sell them to

someone who promised to restore them they were able to revolve has fallen in that way in that way by houses that would just about just to save them and then turn them around so that they must hunt and they say the downtown savannah record all by doing so he gets a lot of pressure and but in doing a portrait of leopold charlie had in the savanna and by the way he was a member of the board of trustees of the national trust restored president are you going to do a valid gentle support we have a half to include not just all that but the backlog grows when he is because lee adler does like his publicity and he's accused by having the best friends of them are taking more credit than he does well i put all this in the book i worked with him because i thought he had to do that is this is really only other is in

savannah his men on these things but according to them fixed costs are so that's part of his bed and in fairness i suppose it's fair to say there is a street races and still runs through savannah georgia and he did he did make it possible for blacks in their community to have on saipan and housing that was provided there i've not made in pop except without what he did was to go into what's called a victorian just lots of lovely wooden houses and he'd use government programs to rehabilitate them for low income people that has infuriated some whites because it's a district very close to have what's called a headstart just slightly older than both are destroyed once called out that based artist

it was was restarted with private money for people who have the money to restore as the victorian district as low income was you know that that skewed the market because of that market prices didn't prevail in an arena so you have or economic the similarities with the wind into very close communities and that is a lot of unhappiness among people who restore their homes with their own money i am nevertheless the other did succeed in getting poorer blacks the smells that parfait and now he's been serving given the very much credit for that the other lincoln it is a gem they don't like each other border to privacy of this dynamic happened there is this lovely little exchange in which it fifteen witnesses telling you you know

average white called him on the telephone and expresses concern about the case he's the murder charges facing you know he detonated they know that edwards against the sentiment back of his mind i guess he worries about well a furious at six black lives matter a more popular quite interesting how jim never lost his self confidence having repeatedly said come out of the mclaren the victory means even after two convictions overturned that while the narrative that gets those and the drive and the talent and how he must be a supremely self confident at all are only self confident he was thought that was a remarkable quality and i couldn't believe that the jury was out for the third try i remember distinctly he was sitting with

that when you were sitting at one point in the outside the courtroom and a woman he hadn't seen for years came along and he was delighted to siri care less about the jury what they were just a nice and badness this because you scare and by the way she i want to look at claims oceans are happy to be loved you anyway indeed he greeted her and then does charlie gonzalez and i thought that the jury is deciding whether he's going to go away for life and he's really an old friend an island but in the same way joe odom was a pretty confident that any shenanigans he was involved and be overlooked when he got involved in all kinds of pension checks of them ending its airport check out but there is that case in which he is a warrior and he's representing thousand at any absolutely no that was worried about global global know legal services for the hearts of those bringing the case

against them yes that was astonishing several that the job had written a lot of their checks for all the people who worked on refurbishing sweet georgia brown subpoena by the carpenters electricians and he goes no and they've obviously within five or six of them brought the lawsuit against it so he went to court he arrived late be greeted all the complaints are flavors carol jean a genial manner as though they were gases club in town he was representing himself and it turned out that one of these people have written has his complaint in the wrong way with long and his charges being thrown out and joe oden past the court let him consult with this movement and what his papers of course in the use of the court to reinstate his name's charge against him for a venture which he did right

there in the courtroom jordan levin oh that's real and that he stands behind its ipod billington in and out so much trouble and he is such a rogue talk a little bit if you would about your about your research project the party a living in sinai and six or seven years to write i spent in fact five years it's living pretty much for the connection you're going to your spanish if what i did was i mean i realized the forest first i'm going to live in fremont three weeks at a time i realized you just have to be here because you stumble on things just living in savannah has somebody that i am intended to meet with him and find out something miles or hear wonderful line so every muslim and i kept notebooks always had a notebook

in my pocket and i am by the way everybody knew it was really what i was the guy and he loves the idea that love is right here and i i was the guy who was writing the book started off as one of calm but after one year in the news by my writing a book about people who would want to do so i first heard the news and then they thought i was writing a book is every four years there was no bar to be seventy then they heard that was coming up in the panic of my goodness what talent isn't on the block and then what might my methodology was too lots of time in the historical society in the live in every record i have the whole shelf of boxes of tapes all of which are being urged to give to

the georgia historical society and i think it will i think this is a journalistic effort although it reads just like in the novel is an automated decided to be entertaining and i would write like a novel so the pew of the time i need to do a dry radio rendering of everything that i've got to why do with that added to calls or i mean what what i did you decide what goes up with if it entertained me even have a nice feel i left them but that the things to work again so seamless so you didn't feel we're stopping they're going to restore the middle of the action so working something in the narrative where was a tricky thing because now you're in new york writing all this time but he hears that questions about what's been happening among wasting my time has been in an affluent frustration i had for years i were i was in savannah a full year before september i was doing interviews i had two hundred

hours of tape recorded interviews two hundred people or anyone thought i didn't worry because i had all the stuff all over the place and it was really unformed know i started writing and i wrote a forty seven page chapter it did not work and i realize i was using the third person the amish an observer i really had to get into it myself and then write from a first person point i had been married are on the scene in savannah that we would work and i wrote three very very short vignettes one about the men walking invisible got one about a man who had makeup on just war or for a particular and what about a black man a white woman jogged around foresight park together but fifty yards apart i put myself in his the observing men and eight or so i realized that was the voice that i would use for the whole book now or more than a year into it i still worry about pulling in all the other is i want to put

anybody i found interesting in the book even if they had nothing to do with the gym when markets but i didn't want to seem as though i was pulling in stuff that was the tricky part three or four years into it i realize it's going to be okay it's going to arm i still had i didn't know when i was with is people began asking where is where is this book didn't believe so long i think you know i'll finish it but i don't know why i came back to new york and on for five years it still was a phase of fact i i wrote another half of what i got back from europe but what really pulled it together best of all was taking the character to show up john berendt author of midnight in the garden of good and evil has been our guest on a war and were heroes defend john seek employment chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville