book
pick
Signed book
giveaway
Costco has five
autographed
copies of John
Berendt’s The
City of Falling
Angels to
give away.
To enter,
print your name,
membership number,
address and daytime
phone number on a
postcard or letter and
send it to: John
Berendt, The Costco
Connection, P.O. Box
34088, Seattle, WA
98124-1088, or fax it to
(425) 313-6718.
No purchase is necessary. Entries must be
received or postmarked
by midnight, October1,
2005. Void where
prohibited. Employees
of Costco and their
families are not eligible.
Winners will be notified
by mail. One entry per
household.
Send your feedback
on this month’s book to:
discussionquestions@
costco.com
Author takes on another rich setting
By Richard Deitsch
HALF FAIRY TALE and half tourist trap. That’s The book takes its name from a sign, “BEWARE OF
what German author Thomas Mann said of Venice, FALLING ANGELS,” posted outside the Santa Maria della
whose own people call this city of grand palazzos, Salute Church in the early 1970s, before restoration
narrow calles and speedy vaporettos “La of its marble angels. In the book, Berendt prods and
Serenissima,” Latin for “the most serene one.” pokes around the city like one of its famed pigeons,
La Serenissima has always been hard to resist for encountering Venetian eccentrics and spoiled aristo-
artists and writers. And if ever an author and subject crats, all while trying to get to the bottom of the mys-
were ripe for each other, it’s Venice and John Berendt, tery behind the burning of La Fenice (Italian for
who exploded onto the literary “phoenix”) Opera House, which
scene in 1994 with Midnight in John burned to the ground on January 29,
the Garden of Good and Evil, a Berendt 1996, mere days prior to his arrival.
larger-than-life debut“nonfiction “I thought I’d start with the fire,
novel” of murder and mayhem in follow the investigation and the
antebellum Savannah, Georgia. rebuilding, and along the way come up
The book, which was a finalist for with other things,” says Berendt, 64,
the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for general who previously worked as a columnist
nonfiction, spent more than four for Esquire and once edited New York
years on the New York Times best- magazine. By 2000, he had 23 loose-leaf
seller list and went through 105 notebooks filled with notes.
printings. The author says he contemplated
“What was important about reexamining the rich tapestry of the
the first book and what worked American South as a second book but
so well was the place,” Berendt thought better of it. “If I did, no matter
tells The Connection in a phone interview from his how it turned, people would say it was a pale imita-
home in New York City. “[Savannah] was a remark- tion of the first book,” he explains.
able place that was isolated, steeped in ritual, history Ah, the first book. The fantastic success of
and tradition. And it was unearthly beautiful. Midnight allowed Berendt the luxury of pacing him-
“So what other place had all those things going self as far as a second book. Now that Angels is com-
for it? Well, Venice. Now, Venice is not at all like pleted, Berendt says he’d love to find another topic
Savannah, but it is isolated, steeped in tradition and for a third book. He’d be wise to remember his
history, and is beautiful architecturally. What it rep- favorite Italian expression, “ci vediamo”—“hope
resents [to] a reader is an escape in both places.” we’ll see you soon”—a sentiment that his fans will
The setting has changed to Venice, but the likely feel after reading The City of Falling Angels.
delight of following Berendt along his tourist-cum- “The whole idea that it took me 11 years to do
literary-detective path remains the same. His second another book is misleading a little,” Berendt says. “I
book, The City of Falling Angels, offers the same joys wasn’t working on a book for 11 years. I had to do the
as Midnight, a funhouse of real-life eccentrics and whole dog-and-pony act with Midnight, and that was
gossipy dialogue that reads like fiction. quite a whirl, with a movie and all that stuff. I didn’t
have writer’s block at all. What
happened was that I wanted to
pick a topic that was as com-
pelling as the first one. And that
was not an easy assignment.”
Berendt says that among his
stops on his upcoming book
tour will be Savannah, which has
experienced an otherworldly
increase in tourism, in part
fueled by his book.
GRAZIANO ARICI
Penpniıec’s k
Pennie Clark Ianniciello
Costco Book Buyer
REMEMBER John Berendt? readers meet a prominent
He’s the author of the über- poet, a contemporary
successful Midnight in the Venetian surrealist painter
Garden of Good and Evil. and outrageous provocateur,
And he’s back. His new non- the master glassblower of
fiction work, The City of Venice and others—includ-
Falling Angels, is this ing crazy Americans, stool
month’s Book Pick. pigeons and hustlers.
FRANCE FREEMAN
Set in Venice, the book Sophomore efforts often
begins with Berendt breed much speculation, not
researching the 1996 fire that always for the best, but
destroyed La Fenice Opera Berendt proves he’s still at
House. He fleshes out the the head of the class.
story by writing in a style The City of Falling
typically reserved for fiction, Angels is available in most
full of rich dialogue and crazy Costco warehouses and at
characters. Through Berendt costco.com.—PCI
“How am I treated there?”
says Berendt. “I’m treated like a
superhero.” The author laughs at
his own fortune. “It’s the only
place I am.” C
Richard Deitsch is a freelance
writer living in New York City.
