NOON IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

Traveling north of sixty …

… and with apologies to John Berendt who is author of the 1994 book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 

One of our Savannah trolley tour guides mentioned that John Berendt’s book and the subsequent movie have been responsible for a huge uptick in visitors to Savannah. I have not read the book – the plotline looks to be a bit edgy for me. However, I am drawn to the focus of the book, which is Bonaventure Cemetery. The title alludes to the hoodoo notion of “midnight,” the period between the time for good magic (11:30 P.M. to midnight) and the time for evil magic (midnight to 12:30 A.M.).

We have been to Savannah a number of times previously for photoshoots, visits and marathon runs down the beautiful oak-lined avenues, but this was the first time we sought out Bonaventure. The azaleas and camellias were in their spring glory in mid-March, and we returned a couple more times, just to enjoy the ambiance.

John Muir visited here in 1867 and the description in his book “A Thousand Mile Walk“, is better than anything I can say:

I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived from another world. Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life. The rippling of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous confidence of flowers, the calm, undisturbable grandeur of the oaks, mark this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes of life and light.”
– “Camping in the Tombs,” from A Thousand Mile Walk

You will want to make this a stop on your first or next visit to Savannah!