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Suzanne
Rating:
 
Review
This story, although based on a real murder trial, reads more like a merry romp through the tomfoolery of the Deep South, and was shelved in the travel literature section of my neighborhood bookstore. The first third is a gossipy Who's Who of Savannah's most outrageous, colorful, and strange citizens. The man on trial, Jim Williams, is a swanky antiques dealer living in Savannah's finest historic home. He collects Nazi memorabilia and plays "psycho dice". His alleged victim was his part-time employee, a hotheaded but sexy street hustler – but was it murder or self-defense? There's also a depressed inventor who goes around with flies tied to his lapels with strings, a bankrupt ex-lawyer turned piano player who parties night and day in other people's mansions while they're out of town, an ostentatious drag queen, and let's not forget the voodoo woman creeping around in the cemetery at night! Savannah turns out to be an isolated, gun toting small town of one party after another, with a thin veneer over its multi-faceted bigotries. I wouldn't want to live there, but it makes for a rollicking good Southern-fried read.
Best Line:
"They don't have any say-so over me, and they don't like that at all." (pg. 237)
Kim
Rating:
Review
The cast of characters in this true story is vast, and I do mean characters, as so many of the Savannah-ites the author writes about are unique and off-beat, though likeable overall. There is Joe Odom, the tax attorney, real estate broker and piano player who thinks nothing of stealing electricity from his neighbor's house, and there's Luther Driggers, an eccentric inventor who attaches thread to house flies so he can catch them easily, and then there is Chablis, a gender-bending entertainer and former Miss Gay Georgia, just to mention a few. As fascinating as everyone is in Savannah, this story mostly revolves around Jim Williams, a wealthy antiques dealer and host of an annual Christmas party that sounds as though it could rival Vanity Fair's Oscar parties. Near the middle of the story, Jim shoots and kills one of his employees, an angry young man named Danny Hansford, and the rest of book he is either on trial, being convicted of murder, having his judgment reversed, or being retried, all pretty much your basic legal nightmare. I liked this book a lot, and not just because of all the colorful people. It reads like a novel, and managed to stay with me a long time after finishing it.
Best Line:
"As she spoke, I recognized in her voice the costal accent described in Gone with the Wind – "soft and slurring liquid of vowels and consonants."
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