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Who

Berendt is the author of the mega-hit true crime tale Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and a follow-up about Venice, The City of Falling Angels.

Backstory

Berendt's work for the Harvard Lampoon caught the eye of an editor at Esquire, who recruited the young Syracuse native to write for the magazine in 1961. For the next two decades, he worked as a TV writer for David Frost and Dick Cavett and then spent three years in the late '70s as editor-in-chief of New York when it was owned by Rupert Murdoch. In the '80s, Berendt began visiting Savannah, Georgia, where he became fascinated by the murder of a local gay hustler by a prominent art dealer. In 1994, he published Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a "non-fiction novel" about the case and the four trials that resulted (it was edited by Ann Godoff). The book proved to be a runway hit, spending more than four years in the New York Times bestseller list (a record), selling over 2.5 million copies (the initial print run was just 25,000), and becoming a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He followed that up with another bestseller, The City of Falling Angels, which used Venice in the same way Midnight used Savannah.

Drama

Some Venetians weren't thrilled with the author's "exploitation" of their city and its people in The City of Falling Angels, especially the license he took with real events and timelines. Similarly, there was much controversy over Berendt's willingness to play fast and loose with the truth in Midnight, particularly his decision to include himself as a character in key scenes that occurred months before he first arrived in Savannah, and his "heterosexualization" of a central figure who was in fact gay. The book sent Savannah's tourism through the roof, though: Berendt was later given the key to the city.

On screen

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was turned into a 1997 film by Clint Eastwood. The rather bloated movie starred Kevin Spacey and Jude Law, and somehow managed to distort the facts of the murder case even more extensively than the book did.

Personal

The single, gay Berendt lives in a five-story townhouse on the Upper West Side that features a gym, atrium, and several terraces, including one occupied by a copy of the spooky statue from the cover of Midnight.