Berendt emerged, to me, as a dishonest, or at least myopic, writer. I ended up settling on four because I started looking at the book as a historical artifact, a specific construction of Savannah and that construction told a more interesting story than the one Berendt was intentionally telling. The picture of Savannah he gave us was one of the most idealized fantasies of the modern South: this hazy dream of hospitality, close-knit communities, delicious food, and beautiful houses. There's a romanticized notion of noblesse oblige that permeates all of Berendt's descriptions of the upper crust paired with the idea that the poor (read: Black) of Savannah are incapable of determining their own paths in life. While some of Berendt's observations provide some counter to this idea (for example, the absolute pettiness surrounding the restoration of different neighborhoods in Savannah but the final lines of his book gave me serious pause: 

He frames his tale with the idea of Savannahians not wanting to change, pointing to all the ways they've continued doing things the same way they have for decades. And this is why I call the book a historical artifact: this desire for things to stay the same is the material that has paved the path to where we stand in 2025. Berendt's depiction of benign conservativism hides the problems of inequality in Savannah—or tries to as he struggled to erase the racism pervading the city. No matter how much he tried to turn the white elites of Savannah into charming eccentrics, he could not fully obscure their rampant racism and that their wealth was built and continues to be built by poor people of color. There are only three significant Black characters in this story about a city he says multiple times is 50% white and 50% Black: Chabalis, the trans drag queen, Minerva, a root worker, and Dr. Collier, the founder of the Black debutante ball. Chablis is the only regular character whose accent gets written out in a way stereotypical of "flamboyant" queer folks and drag queens and Black women. Jim Williams, the sort of main character, has hired Minerva to help him with his legal battles. He complains endlessly about the hundreds of thousands he spends on his lawyers but only pays Minerva $25/day. 

There is more I could talk about, especially involving queerness and homosexuality, but I hope my point has been suitably made. As a 21st century reader, I would advise going into this book as a window into a different time, a breeding ground for things that were to come, and a cautionary tale of how the story we tell about a place and its people can easily and quickly be warped.