Taking Lottie Home

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Review: At first I didn't like this book. I picked it up and thought, oh great, it's about baseball. How wrong was I when I picked this one up at a bookstore? So I put it down. A few days later, after finding myself at loose ends because nothing I picked up sounded good, I gave it a try again. And this time, I was hooked. Terry Kay's writing just ensared me and I couldn't put the book down till the last page was turned.

Kay's characters just came alive in this book ~~ their dreams, their passions, their loves and fears. This is an wonderful book that will haunt you with its lyrical writing and true characters. There is Ben who is kicked off the Augusta baseball team at the same time as Foster Lanier, an older baseball player. They meet up again on the way home from the baseball fields. Ben struggles to make a life again in his hometown, Jericho, as he struggles with ending his dreams of playing baseball. Throughout his life, he kept track of his best friend Milo who did remain behind to play ball and eventually played for Boston Red Sox. Then there is Lottie, the woman he meets on his journey home ~~ and he continues to meet her over the years. And this is their story ~~ of friendship and eventually taking Lottie home. Foster married Lottie and fathered her son, but Ben took her home.

It's an enchanting story of the deep South at the beginning of the 20th century. These characters are just as real as your grandparents were ~~ and very interesting too. It's a great book to read on a lazy day swinging on the hammock ~~ just be prepared with lemonade and cookies ~~ once you start reading this book, you don't want it to stop!

5-25-04

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly Beautiful
Review: Some books, as well as characters, can haunt you for days, maybe years, after the reading is done. "Taking Lottie Home" is such a book. And Lottie Lanier is just such a character: part girl, part woman, and all too giving, with eyes no one ever forgets. So, too, is the character Ben Phelps, the young would-be dream-catcher, who catches the ball but only worships the dream, living it vicariously through the faraway exploits of the intangible, aloof Milo Wade. And there's Foster Lanier, who tastes the dream, only to see it turn bitter before finding his final, brief comfort in the arms of Lottie. Then there is Arthur Ledford, a lonely, tormented, fair but angry man, whose role in Lottie's life turns out to be nearly as surprising as Lottie herself. Even the minor characters are hard to forget: Ben's mother, Margaret Phelps, who clings to Lottie's child, little Ben; Ben's fiancee, Sally, who sees Lottie as the greatest threat to her happiness; Arthur's wife, Alice, a cold, hateful woman who seems to believe all women should be miserable by nature; Coleman Maxey, a pain-in-the-butt redneck troublemaker, and an assortment of other town characters who are either enthralled by Lottie or unnerved by her. There is also the strangest alliance of carnival bad guys ever to appear in a Kay novel: a one-armed giant and a midget. Lottie's story takes place in early 1900's Georgia and Kentucky, when it was still the train that took people to faraway places. It, too, could be considered a character in this story, as could the town of Jerico, which sounds a lot like long ago Royston, Georgia, just as Milo Wade sounds a lot like the baseball great Ty Cobb.

Two great contemporary Southern writers are Terry Kay and Pat Conroy. It struck me, while reading this book, that the two men are interesting contrasts, especially regarding the way they write about the South. It reminds me of two men I once heard trying to describe the taste of a persimmon. Both liked the taste, but one said it was bitter, with a little sweet in it; the other said it was more sweet than bitter. For bittersweet stories about the South, it's hard to beat Conroy or Kay. And "Taking Lottie Home" is a sweet story, with just the right amount of bitter. It's the kind of story that stays with you for a long, long time.

Rating:
Summary: Take a sentimental journey with Lottie and her friends.
Review: The first book I read by Terry Kay was Shadow Song followed by To Dance with the White Dog which also became a wonderful television production a few years ago. Now with his latest book, Taking Lottie Home, Mr. Kay capitaves his reading audience with a sentimental tale which not only evokes a different era but wholesome and well meaning characters with the very best of values.

On a train home, two men recently discharged from a minor baseball team meet Lottie, a young woman with a questionable past. Ben returns home to his mother while Foster marries Lottie and they have a son and a good marraige. When Foster dies, though, it wa shis wish that Ben accompany Lottie home to her family to continue raising their son. But Lotties family and home life isn't conducive to raising a child so she returns to Ben's hometown where she spends time living with Ben's mother and also meets Ben's future father-in-law. And in a stunning turn of events, Lottie leaves these people who truly care about her but not before she also leaves a part of herself with them.

This is a wonderful book which will intoduce you to some fine characters you would be proud to call friends if they lived in your town.

Enjoy!!!!