Taking Lottie Home [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Terry Kay (Author), Buck Schirner (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 25, 2004

An Elegant Story of Love Given, Love Returned, and Love Remembered When Foster Lanier and Ben Phelps are released from a professional baseball team in 1904, it is the only experience they have in common until they meet a runaway - a girl-woman named Lottie Parker - on a train that takes them from Augusta, Georgia, and away from their dreams of greatness. Foster will marry her and father her son. Ben will escort her home. And Lottie will change the lives of everyone she meets from the day she runs away until she finally finds the place where she belongs. The story of Lottie reveals the life of a rare woman who never completely loses the innocence of her dreams - although she leaves home as a prostitute and works the girlie tent in a traveling carnival. Her marriage to Foster and the birth of her son are part of her dream. Having Ben care for her following Foster's death, being accepted into the home of Margaret Phelps, Ben's mother, and meeting Arthur Ledford, the father of Ben's fiancee, are fragments of the dream as well.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Georgia at the beginning of the 20th century, this latest novel by the popular author of Shadow Song is an evocative, atmospheric and elegiac story of an uncommon woman and the three men she loves. Lottie Augusta Barton, "angel of the lonesome," is born in a tumbledown river house in Augusta. To escape from her troubled family, she takes to the road in 1904 with a traveling salesman. On the train, she meets Ben Phelps and Foster Lanier, baseball players just cut from the Augusta Hornets. Ben, nearly as sweet-natured as Lottie, is on his way home to a good job in a dry-goods store in his home town of Jericho. Foster, drunk and down on his luck, takes up with Lottie and they both join a traveling carnival. To Ben's surprise, when the carnival comes to Jericho, Foster's strange generosity sets Ben up as a local hero in a carny baseball game, and almost kindles romance between Ben and Lottie. Several years later, when Ben is engaged to his boss Arthur Ledford's daughter, Sally, he hears from Lottie; she and Foster married and have a son, called Little Ben, but Foster is dying and would like to see Ben again. Ben goes to Kentucky, and ends up bringing Lottie and her son to stay in his mother's house for a time, when both fall ill. The townspeople flutter around Lottie, whose radiant, serene presence draws them to her like moths to a gentle flame. A local lowlife attempts to blackmail Lottie with her carnival past, but Arthur Ledford, who's come to love Lottie, rescues her. Ben takes her home to Augusta; then he returns to Jericho, marries Sally and never sees Lottie again. Little Ben comes back, though, and in an epilogue, his daughter, the story's offscreen narrator, adds a poignant twist to the narrative. Though slow at the outset, this affecting novel glows with warmth and sincerity, and manifests Kay's customary ability to pull at the heartstrings. 6-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Terry Kay is the bestselling author of Taking Lottie Home. His previous novels, To Dance with the White Dog and The Runaway, were Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations. He lives in the Atlanta area.

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Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed; Library edition (December 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596005203
• ISBN-13: 978-1596005204
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kay Shines in New Novel, September 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Taking Lottie Home: A Novel (Hardcover)

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!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story About Life, December 15, 2000

By 

Steven P. Harvey (Dacula, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Lottie Home: A Novel (Hardcover)

I just finished "Taking Lottie Home." While reading the book, I kept thinking that it was a good book but not a great book. Then I read the epilogue. At that point, the book became the great book. When a writer can write and make his reader feel the joy and pain of life as it really is, then he has risen to the top of the craft. He becomes like Hemingway or Steinbeck. Terry Kay has done that with "Taking Lottie Home." As I read this book I hurt and I laughed. And when I finished it, I was affected. Terry Kay wrote in the front of my book (I bought it at a book signing) that he hoped that the story mattered. Mr. Kay, the story mattered. Thanks.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Story, March 10, 2001

By 

anne johnson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Lottie Home: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was my first Terry Kay novel and now I am going to run, not walk, to my Library in hopes that it will have all the rest of his works. I will not waste space summarizing the story as other reviewers have done a super job but I do want to say that there is something wrong with Oprah's opinion if she or whoever selects her book of the month if this one isn't selected in the very near future. I have read most of "her" selections and this is better than many of them. Another good one for those who like Southern settings is Home Across the Road by Nancy Peacock.

I really hated for this one to end and would love a sequel based on what really happened to Lottie and her life after this one.

Mr. Kay, where have you been all my life?????