John Berendt

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John Berendt (1939 - ) is an American author, known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Berendt grew up in Syracuse, New York, where both of his parents were writers. As an English major at Harvard University, he worked on the staff of the Harvard Lampoon. He graduated in 1961 and moved to New York City to pursue a journalism career.

Berendt was editor of New York Magazine from 1977 to 1979 and a columnist for Esquire from 1982 to 1994.

When he penned Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1994, Berendt became an overnight success. Chronicling the real-life events surrounding a murder trial in Savannah, Georgia, the book spent 216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. John Berendt recounts an anecdote on the writing of this book in the documentary Damn Good Dog.

A movie version directed by Clint Eastwood appeared in 1997 to mixed reviews.

Berendt's most recent book, The City of Falling Angels, chronicling interwoven lives in Venice in the aftermath of the fire which destroyed the La Fenice opera house, was published in September 2005. According to Kirkus Reviews (1 August 2005), "Berendt does great justice to an exalted city that has rightly fascinated the likes of Henry James, Robert Browning and many filmmakers throughout the world."