Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful, warm book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Ben and Lottie were such great characters. I really liked them. It's so interesting as this book leads us through their lives and how they intertwine with each other through the years. Very good book. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: Like many others, I too started reading Terry Kay novels with "To Dance With the White Dog." I received this book as a Chrismas gift and finished it in the time it took me to fly from L.A. to Fiji. What a way to spend a 10-hour flight! I won't recap the synopsis, but suffice it to say that this book will capture your attention from page one and hold you there until the epilogue. The epilogue is what really makes this a GREAT book and you can actually picture this book being a made-for-tv-movie. I'm re-reading it just to make sure that I didn't miss anything the first time!! A definite MUST READ for anyone that is a Terry Kay fan!
Rating:
Summary: hauntng, lyrical exploration of love's mysterious connection
Review: Reading Terry Kay's huanting and wrenching "Taking Lotte Home" brings the reader in the hands of a writer who is completely comfortable with a genuine mastery of his craft. This novel is an engrossing work which not only absorbs the reader's attention with its sensitive and provocative treatment of the twin themes of fulfilled and unrequited love; it engages the reader in a profoundly personal manner through its exploration o the inner lives of its complex, sympathetic and utterly believable characters. Set at the turn of the twentieth century in rural Georgia, "Taking Lottie Home" is an utterly modern novel as well; its characters' yearnings, frustrations and anxieties elicit the deepest sympathies from the reader."Taking Lottie Home" treats an enigmatic, yet magnetic, girl-woman, Lottie Barton and her eliptical travels through the rural southeast in an attempt to discover "home." Lottie's exquisite physical beauty casts a surreal attraction from both lustful men and jealous women. The product of squalid poverty and blighted hopes, Lottie ironically becomes the focus of a liberating friendship with Ben Phelps, whose altruistic interest in Lottie results in numerous moral conundrums. In her life's travels, Lottie, through volition and resignation, has submitted to prostitution, an troubled marriage and attractions understated, Lottie becomes the focus of the three main male characters in the novel. The aforementioned Ben Phelps befriends Lottie and serves as her guardian at the request of his baseball-playing friend, Foster Lanier. Lanier and Phelps share blighted athletic careers, though their friendship circles around Lottie. Lanier marries Lottie and fathers her child; Ben learns that platonic love carries explosive connotations. Ben's ultimate employer, Arthur Ledford, will nurture his own complicated relationship with Lottie, and Kay masterfully interweaves the complications of these connections throughout the novel. One of the marvelous qualities of "Taking Lottie Home" is that although it is not a terribly original book, it succeeds on every level. Kay's creative treatment of the awful consequences of tormeted silence, innocent deceit and unfulfilled dreams is nothing less than brilliant. Lottie and Ben arouse enormous empathy as they grapple with their decisions and directions. The author's accurate portrait of small-town Southern life some hundred years ago strengthens the novel's thematic coherence and integrity of characterization. "Taking Lottie Home" packs an enormous emotional wallop; it is an inspirational, challenging and evocative triumph.
Rating:
Summary: hauntng, lyrical exploration of love's mysterious connection
Review: Reading Terry Kay's huanting and wrenching "Taking Lotte Home" brings the reader in the hands of a writer who is completely comfortable with a genuine mastery of his craft. This novel is an engrossing work which not only absorbs the reader's attention with its sensitive and provocative treatment of the twin themes of fulfilled and unrequited love; it engages the reader in a profoundly personal manner through its exploration o the inner lives of its complex, sympathetic and utterly believable characters. Set at the turn of the twentieth century in rural Georgia, "Taking Lottie Home" is an utterly modern novel as well; its characters' yearnings, frustrations and anxieties elicit the deepest sympathies from the reader. "Taking Lottie Home" treats an enigmatic, yet magnetic, girl-woman, Lottie Barton and her eliptical travels through the rural southeast in an attempt to discover "home." Lottie's exquisite physical beauty casts a surreal attraction from both lustful men and jealous women. The product of squalid poverty and blighted hopes, Lottie ironically becomes the focus of a liberating friendship with Ben Phelps, whose altruistic interest in Lottie results in numerous moral conundrums. In her life's travels, Lottie, through volition and resignation, has submitted to prostitution, an troubled marriage and attractions understated, Lottie becomes the focus of the three main male characters in the novel. The aforementioned Ben Phelps befriends Lottie and serves as her guardian at the request of his baseball-playing friend, Foster Lanier. Lanier and Phelps share blighted athletic careers, though their friendship circles around Lottie. Lanier marries Lottie and fathers her child; Ben learns that platonic love carries explosive connotations. Ben's ultimate employer, Arthur Ledford, will nurture his own complicated relationship with Lottie, and Kay masterfully interweaves the complications of these connections throughout the novel. One of the marvelous qualities of "Taking Lottie Home" is that although it is not a terribly original book, it succeeds on every level. Kay's creative treatment of the awful consequences of tormeted silence, innocent deceit and unfulfilled dreams is nothing less than brilliant. Lottie and Ben arouse enormous empathy as they grapple with their decisions and directions. The author's accurate portrait of small-town Southern life some hundred years ago strengthens the novel's thematic coherence and integrity of characterization. "Taking Lottie Home" packs an enormous emotional wallop; it is an inspirational, challenging and evocative triumph.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable Lottie
Review: Seldom, if ever, has a character captured and held me as Lottie Lanier did in this book. Not a common person, but both simple and complex, dull and interesting. Terry Kay has managed allow the reader to follow and care about her journey home and to grieve and worry about the end. I laid the book aside for almost two weeks for two reasons: First, I didn't want the words to end, and second, I couldn't possibly see how it could end well. It is a wonderful and unusual love story as only Terry Kay can write.
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: Haunting
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: Didn't want it to end
Review: Taking Lottie Home captured me from the beginning and consumed me for days. I could hardly bear for it to end and then it ended so wondefully. I'm reading it for the second time, still finding it to be as fine as I remembered.
Rating:
Summary: Kay Shines in New Novel
Review: Terry Kay may be best known for his wonderful novel, TO DANCE WITH THE WHITE DOG, but he outdoes himself in this spellbinding tale of love lost and found at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel is so rich in characters and plot that it would be difficult to summarize either without falling short of the dimensions he's created on both counts. In Lottie Lanier, he has discovered a girl/woman for the ages, a character at times so simple, yet at others, complex, mysterious, and so downright appealing, you literally feel like she's in the room beside you as you continue reading. For anyone who has ever been in or out of love at any time in one's life, TAKING LOTTIE HOME is one novel you will read, cherish, and most importantly, never forget. Cry, laugh, cheer, but do not miss this one!
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!!!!
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