'Midnight' still shines on Savannah
City remains in spotlight 10 years after best-seller
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Trese Newman shows tourist Pat Cadaret, left, a small-scale version of the Bird Girl statue and other Savannah souvenirs in The Book Gift Shop.
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SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) -- Locals simply refer to it as "The Book." It had been on store shelves less than three months in 1994 when Trese Newman got her first clue that things were going to be different in Savannah.
Bonaventure Cemetery had removed The Bird Girl, the bronze statue on the cover of John Berendt's new book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," to spare the surrounding plot from tourists' trampling feet.
"When you have to start removing a statue that had been in the cemetery since 1938, you realize something's going on," Newman said from behind the register at The Book Gift Shop, where autographed copies of "Midnight" continue to sell alongside Bird Girl mugs, hand creams and canned jams.
A decade has passed since Berendt, a New York magazine writer, published "Midnight" with its gossipy tales of a murder, a drag queen and voodoo rituals that many Savannahians doubted outsiders would ever read.
Since its debut in January 1994, Berendt's book has sold 3.3 million copies and spent 216 weeks on The New York Times list of best sellers. If Savannahians were surprised, so was the author.
"When I was asked how will it sell, I said, 'Look, this is not a mainstream book,"' Berendt said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Look at what's in it ... the drag queen, the gay murder, you name it. It was not what mainstream Americans are used to. What I guess happened was that the mainstream widened while I was writing the book."
In his hugely popular book, Berendt tells the story of Jim Williams, a restoration specialist and antiques dealer who shoots and kills his lover, Danny Hansford. Although the murder and Williams' arrest and subsequent four trials shape the book's primary theme, it is the unfolding of Savannah's quirky residents and lore that brings the book to life.
The spotlight that the book shined through Savannah's canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss turned this once-sleepy coastal city into a tourism dynamo.
"When I was talking to the folks who hired me, I said, 'I don't know if you need me or just another John Berendt,"' said Anthony Schopp, president of the Savannah Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
A global reach
Before "Midnight," Savannah mostly attracted day-trippers who swung through to see the city's parklike squares, marble monuments and antebellum homes. Afterward, when copies of the book became as much a travel accessory as sunscreen, tourists swarmed in from around the world.
Overnight stays by visitors skyrocketed from 3.5 million in 1994 to 10.5 million in 2002, the latest figures available. The estimated amount of money spent by visitors to Savannah leaped from $587 million to $1.07 billion during the same period.
The Mercer House is a major landmark for fans of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," which debuted in 1994.
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Schopp says a robust economy and tourism growth across the South in the mid-1990s helped spur the boom. But "Midnight," the book and the 1997 movie version directed by Clint Eastwood, gave Savannah confidence to invest in tourism as serious business.
New hotels opened downtown. The grand Marshall House Hotel, built in 1857, reopened in 1999 after being shuttered for 40 years. Vacant historic district storefronts gave way to chain stores such as Starbucks and the Gap.
"There are neighborhoods you can travel into now safely because there are restored buildings instead of abandoned buildings," said Mark McDonald, executive director of the Historic Savannah Foundation. "Much of the heavy lifting had been done already. But when the book came out, it just put an exponent beside it."
Downtown real-estate broker Dickie Mopper recalled a flight from London about five years ago. On the plane was a group of British tourists, headed for Savannah. Each one carried a copy of "Midnight."
"The book did a tremendous amount to promote the city as a tourist destination and that had a lot to do with people falling in love with Savannah and saying, 'This is a place I want to invest,"' Mopper said.
Though housing prices in historic Savannah soared over the past decade -- 19th-century homes that sold for $250,000 then now fetch more than $1 million -- Mopper said the book had only a "nominal" influence.
"Midnight" fandom failed to sell the famous Mercer House for an asking price of $7 million when it went on the market a few years ago. The Victorian mansion was the home of Williams, who died of pneumonia in 1990 at age 59.
But there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that some tourists who came to Savannah and decided to stay were influenced by "Midnight." Schopp, the visitors bureau president, recalled golfing with a Wisconsin transplant in 1998.
"I said, 'Why did you leave,"' Schopp said. "He said, 'It's a long story. Here's the short of it -- my wife read the book."'
Secrets and 'The Book'
Many Savannah residents read "Midnight" as well when it debuted in 1994. Esther Shaver, who owns a small bookstore on Madison Square, sold 1,000 copies at a launch party with Berendt. She stopped counting years ago when her sales topped 20,000.
At first, many locals kept talk of the saucy best seller strictly private -- even after tourists arrived with copies in hand -- for fear of social reprisals.
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 We were all nervous. For the first six months, the tour companies told their guides not to mention the book. But, of course, the tourists, they would have nothing of it. That's why they came here in the first place. 
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-- John Duncan, on the mood after 'The Book' was published
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John Duncan, a retired history professor and a friend of Berendt, turned down an offer by the Savannah Morning News to review "Midnight."
"I didn't want to stick out my neck that far," said Duncan, who now sells autographed copies from his book shop on Monterey Square.
"We were all nervous. For the first six months, the tour companies told their guides not to mention the book. But, of course, the tourists, they would have nothing of it. That's why they came here in the first place."
Pat Tuttle started her own tour company the year before "Midnight" debuted, and later became the first to offer a tour based solely on the book.
"Growing up in the South, you're told you don't tell family secrets," said Tuttle, who once was scolded in front of her tour group. "A family friend I respected greatly, an older lady, came up and she shook her finger at me and said, 'Pat, you should not be doing this.' And I almost started crying."
Though Tuttle and others say "Midnight"-mania has tapered off after peaking in about 1998, some tourists still pack a keen interest -- and some locals still ignore it.
Ruth and Kim Martin of Fredericksburg, Virginia, recently entered the Book Gift Shop still wearing puzzled looks from their last stop at the Savannah Visitors Center.
"I asked for the book tour and the lady said, 'What book would that be?"' Ruth Martin told Newman, the shop employee.
Newman picked up the phone to book them a tour reservation and answered with a knowing smile: "Well, you met someone who's either in the book or friends with somebody who's in the book."
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
