The statue known as the Bird Girl was created in 1936 by
Sylvia Shaw Judson in Lake Forest, Illinois. It was commissioned
as a garden sculpture and birdfeeder for a family in Massachusetts.
An 8 year-old model named Lorraine Greenman posed for the piece.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a book about repercussions that ripple from the murder of a local male prostitute.

“The garden of good and evil” is Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, the town in which the novel is set.

Photographer Jack Leigh found the Bird Girl sculpture on the grave of Lucy Boyd Trosdal at the end of his second day of searching. Leigh made a quick shot before dusk set in, then spent 10 hours in the darkroom giving the image a moonlit feel and accentuating the halo around the statue’s head. 

I’m thinking Jack Leigh’s cover photo had a lot to do with the success of the book. What do you think?