Savannah Style: Mystery and Manners
Category: Books,History,Americas
Savannah Style: Mystery and Manners Details
Amazon.com Review Following the extremely popular Charleston Style, Susan Sully has brought us another book about a southern city, Savannah Style. In this collection of photographs and stories of 20 houses, inspired by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (who gives a charming introduction), she builds a dark atmosphere in words. Her writing is intelligent and lyrical, and brings to the mind images that, unfortunately, the photographs cannot compete with--oddly disconnected, they seem to be the result of a botched mandate to capture the rich shadiness of her writing. Most of the exteriors are too much in shadow to see details, and a suspicious yellow-orange cast looms over many of the interiors. Weighed down by its predecessor, Berendt's novel, and its gloomy photographs, Savannah Style seems to have too much weight to bear for one book. Still, the imagery of Sully's writing make this coffee-table book a surprisingly good read. --Juliette Cezzar Read more From Publishers Weekly A Savannah gentleman, asked to explain his hometown, recently said, "This is a city where men own their own white tie and tails. We don't rent them." That, writer John Berendt notes in an introduction to Susan Sully's Savannah Style: Mystery and Manners, "says it all." Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil made the elegant Southern city a site of national fascination. Sully (Charleston Style) guides readers through its lavish architecture and interiors. Plantations, lush gardens, shady wicker-furnished porches, townhouses and parlors are invitingly presented, and their diverse styles which include Spanish, French, Asian, Federalist, English Arts and Crafts, Greek Revival, Baroque and Gothic influences are cogently explained. Those who love Southern architecture will welcome this book, and so will Berendt readers intrigued by Savannah and its secrets. 130 color, 20 b&w photos by Steven Brooke. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Read more See all Editorial Reviews
Reviews
I purchased this book, intending to use it as a guest book for our upcoming destination wedding in Savannah. (Guests would sign the edges of the pages and we'd have a lovely coffee table book to look through when we returned home, filled with love and well-wishes from our guests.) While this book is beautiful and the photos are striking, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. The vast majority of the photos were of inside various homes. I was hoping to find a book that had more photos of the squares, riverfront, etc. Still a great book, though.
