Importance of Money at Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil In Savannah, Georgia, inherited money is held in much higher esteem than earned money . This is a recurring theme in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt's non-fictional account of life in Savannah. Characters like Jim Williams, who worked for their money and made careers, are seen as inferior to those who inherited their money, like Lee Adler. Old wealth tends to look down on anyone who wasn't born into their money. Their opinions on almost everything, including laws and punishments, differ depending on whether the person in question is rich through blood or sweat. Even though Savannah is a city full of wealthy people, there isn't much wealth earned. Most of Savannah's wealthy people have been wealthy for generations. Among the few exceptions is Jim Williams. He was born in Gordon, Georgia, a small town near Macon. "My father was a barber and my mother worked as a secretary in the city's [gypsum] mine. My money - what's left of it - is about eleven years old," Williams says (Berendt 4). Jim Williams is an oddity in Savana. This "socially important antiquarian" (Bellafante 79) is arrogant and pompous, but unlike those who are like this because they believe they were born with the right to be so, they are like this because they know they have earned the right. It is for this reason, however, that he is not truly accepted by his neighbors. For example, there is the Oglethorpe Club, one of the highest class social clubs, even by Savannah standards. It would make sense that one of the wealthier aristocrats would be a prominent member of the club. However this is not the case. According to Berendt, the bachelor... middle of paper... greatly upset those who hadn't had their turn. Appropriately enough, at least it seemed to Williams, it was Adler who pushed the district attorney to charge Williams with murder rather than a lesser crime. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt is a non-fictional account of the aristocratic lifestyle of Savannah, Georgia. The book examines many aspects of life in Savannah, as well as the mentality of its people. One of these mentalities is the conflict between “old money” and “new money”. People who have always had money seem to think they are of a higher class than those who have had to work for it. Lee Adler and Jim Williams are two of the combatants in this ongoing war. Adler fights for inherited money, Williams for earned money. The problem for Williams is that the team he inherited seems to control all the cards, even those of the law.