After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Read Online Free PDF

window so that the filmmakers wouldn’t film his house. Later, when someone reminded Jim that a Jewish temple was across the square, he apologized for any offense. The mistake came back to haunt him repeatedly.
     
    Jim developed a unique position within Savannah’s social structure. Even though he was a rebel, respect and admiration for him continued to grow. Most of the people I interviewed liked Jim very much and agreed that he was very hard-working, not just as a deal-maker and expert, but as a man who actually restored antiques himself. His hands were calloused from working on the furniture he restored. No one doubted his high intelligence and pragmatism. A number of people said he was the most interesting person they had ever met. He had a great sense of humor, was a terrific host, and made his friends feel comfortable whenever they were in his presence. Jim was frequently described as charismatic and very much the southern gentleman. Though he was criticized for being gay, Jim was very conservative in his thinking in other ways—a southern chauvinist, according to one individual. Several people noted his genuine interest in people and a willingness to help people he liked. One friend said that if you shared a subject in which he was interested, he’d pick your brain. He’d learn from you.
     
    Jim donated a number of valuable antiques to the Telfair Museum and cash to the Humane Society.
     
    To be sure, there were downsides to his personality as well. The most common negative comment was that he was controlling and manipulative, a complaint frequently leveled at very successful people. There were also some significant issues with his business ethics, which I will address in the next chapter.
     
    Carol Freeman was one of Jim’s good friends. “He had a tremendous sense of humor, very dry wit and he was very smart,” she told me enthusiastically. “He always had such a positive attitude and he had such a tremendous sense of humor. He kept me in stitches.”
     
    Jim was known for his parties and, after meeting Jim, Carol went to all of them. “His parties were fabulous,” she reminisced. “He was the consummate host. He really knew how to entertain. And he was so handsome, always looking so elegant.”
     

     
    Mercer House party
photo by Jeanne Papy
     
    In 1972 or 1973, Jim first showed up on her radar. She had gone to Mercer House to see a sideboard that Jim had. They got to know each other that day, sitting there on the veranda.
     
    Carol looked at herself in those days as a kind of rebel, much as Jim was. She was not born into Savannah society, but her husband was. For a while, she rebelled, but then, she said, she straightened up: She learned to play golf, participated in the children’s theater, the golf club, and most of the other activities in which Savannah society wives in that era were expected to participate.
     
    Carol laughed as she told me about Jim’s box of 5×7 file cards. Jim had personal handwritten notes on file cards for all the people who had ever been to his parties. He used them as the basis to decide who would be invited to his next party and who wouldn’t. The kind of thing that would keep you off the invitation list was having a party and not inviting Jim. According to Carol, Jim knew everything going on socially in Savannah. Jim took great pleasure in deciding who he would favor and who he would “punish,” but it was all in fun, and not at all malicious. He was mischievous.
     
    On the first day of his trial, he suggested to Carol that they go to the staid, exclusive Oglethorpe Club for lunch. Bachelor sons of Gordon, Georgia, barbers were not members of the Oglethorpe Club, but Carol and her husband were. It was just like Jim to poke at Savannah society mores.
     
    “Savannah was bizarre in a quiet, genteel way,” Carol told me. “Some things were simply not discussed. People covered each others’ asses. Homosexuality was not accepted and not discussed. Old Savannah