The Grand Empress of Savannah - The Lady Chablis

The Lady, the Garden, and the Ghosts of the Lowcountry

---

I wasn’t looking for her. But this Sunday, in the middle of North Carolina, I found The Lady Chablis waiting for me on a used bookstore shelf. Brand new copy of Hiding My Candy, $1.50. A memoir that’s been out of print for years, tucked away like an inside joke. The Grand Empress of Savannah, reduced to a clearance sticker. And yet when I cracked it open, she was there — sharp, unapologetic, unforgettable. Exactly the same woman who stole Clint Eastwood’s dreary film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and refused to be anything but herself.

---

Back in 1994, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil turned Savannah into a legend. A New York reporter comes down for a Christmas party and stumbles into Savannah’s crime of the century — Jim Williams accused of killing his young lover. It wasn’t just true crime. It was travelogue, gossip column, Southern Gothic theater. For 216 weeks it sat on the New York Times bestseller list, drawing busloads of tourists to the Mercer House and turning eccentric locals into characters that could never be forgotten. The timing was uncanny. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) was restoring crumbling warehouses into classrooms, filling the streets with students hauling portfolios and creative energy. The city had been fading, but Berendt handed it a story people wanted to believe. Suddenly Savannah wasn’t a stop on the way to Florida — it was a destination.

Of course Hollywood noticed. Eastwood directed the movie in 1997, and even with the most colorful characters playing themselves, managed to strip the book of all its strangeness. Kevin Spacey, mumbled his way through Jim Williams, draining all the charm out of a man known for it. John Cusack looked like he’d wandered onto the wrong set, and the whole 2.5 hour thing dragged. The only reason to watch it — the only spark of life — was Lady Chablis. Playing herself, she didn’t just light up the screen; she torched it. She didn’t need a script. She was the script. If you want to understand Savannah in that moment, her memoir remains the better text.

I grew up just up the coast, in another Lowcountry city that hasn’t been so fortunate. Our downtown sagged under the weight of mill jobs that disappeared one by one. The riverfront was walled off by smokestacks and steel fences. There were churches and oak-lined streets too, but no book, no art school, no drag queen to save us. That’s what made Savannah sting. You could feel the difference just walking its squares. Eccentricity was currency there. In my hometown, eccentricity was something to be whispered about, not put on display. Savannah let its oddballs speak; we kept ours contained to the front porch.

It’s easy to roll your eyes at tourists clutching cocktail cups and lining up for ghost tours, but Berendt gave Savannah something priceless: permission. Permission to be strange, to be excessive, to live loudly instead of shrinking. Lady Chablis embodied that permission, on the page and on the screen.

The Lowcountry is full of characters and ghosts. Some cities polish theirs into legends. Others bury them, hoping nobody notices. Growing up, I saw both sides. Savannah got a second act. My hometown still waits. As I flip through Hiding My Candy, I’m reminded of the split: between a city that let its eccentrics lead and one that made the safer bet on stability, order, and silence.

Savannah lived. We’re still waiting.

---

📚 Further reading:

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt - Bookshop.org | Amazon

• And the film adaptation: - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

• Hiding My Candy: The Autobiography of the Grand Empress of Savannah by Lady Chablis is out of print, but you can find a copy. The paperback and Kindle versions are currently available on Amazon

  Buying through bookshop.org supports independent bookstores as well as this project. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

  ---

  Stay Connected

  • 📖 Subscribe to Line & Verse for weekly chapters and essays.

  • 📸 Follow along on Instagram: @caleb_writes

  • 🧵 Join me on Threads: Caleb_Writes

  • 📘 Facebook: Caleb Reed