The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

But when the book came out, several of the pseudonymous characters told me they wished I'd used their real names instead. Why the change this time?īerendt: When I wrote Midnight I thought I would do a few people the favor of changing their names for the sake of privacy. In your previous book you did use pseudonyms for some characters and you explained that you took a few small liberties in the service of the larger truth of the story. So both cities offer a writer a rich context in which to set a story, and the stories provide readers a means of escape from their own environment into another world.Ī: I enjoyed your rather declarative author's note: that this is a work of nonfiction, and that you used everyone's real names. Venetians think of themselves as Venetian first, Italian second Savannahians rarely even venture forth as far as Atlanta or Charleston.

Venice sits in the middle of a lagoon Savannah is surrounded by marshes, piney woods, and the ocean. Both are isolated geographically, culturally, and emotionally from the world outside. John Berendt: Savannah and Venice actually have quite a lot in common.

Was it the difference itself that drew you to Venice? Venice, the setting for The City of Falling Angels, is vastly different. And he took the time to answer a few of our questions about his charming new book, The City of Falling Angels:Ī: The lush, cloistered southern city of Savannah was the locale of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. For travelers to Venice, whether by armchair or vaporetto, he has selected his 10 (actually 11) Books to Read on Venice. The new city was Venice, and he spent much of the last decade wandering through its canals and palazzos, seeking to understand a place that any native will tell you is easy to visit but hard to know. Just as John Berendt's first book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was settling into its remarkable four-year run on The New York Times bestseller list, he discovered a new city whose local mysteries and traditions were more than a match for Savannah, whose hothouse eccentricities he had celebrated in the first book. Past Midnight: John Berendt on the Mysteries of Venice

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt