Terry Kay

To Dance with the White Dog Jun 13, 2011

by Terry Kay

$7.99

In this “hauntingly beautiful story about love, family, and relationships,” a mysterious dog helps an elderly man in his final days (Archbishop Desmond Tutu).

After Sam Peek’s beloved wife Cora dies, his children are worried about him. After fifty-seven years of marriage, they are unsure how their elderly father will survive on his own. They talk about him as if he can’t hear them, questioning how he’ll run a farm, drive his truck, or live by himself.

When Sam tells his children about a white dog who visits him, yet seems invisible to everyone else, they are sure that grief and old age have taken a toll on their father. But, real or not, the creature soothes Sam’s grief and ultimately reconciles him with his own mortality.

In this bittersweet story of love, grief, and coming to terms with death, “master storyteller” Terry Kay takes readers on Sam’s journey with his white dog, bringing solace and comfort to the inevitable transition that all must make (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

The Year the Lights Came On Aug 20, 2012

by Terry Kay

( 50 )

$4.99

First published in 1976, The Year the Lights Came On was Terry Kay's debut novel. Revolving around the electrification of rural northeast Georgia shortly after the end of World War II, the novel has become a classic coming-of-age story. Kay, now an acclaimed writer with an international following, has reread the novel with the eyes of a seasoned storyteller. Cutting here and adding there, Kay has enriched an already highly comical and poignant work. The Year the Lights Came On is ready to find its place in the hearts of a new generation.

Untreed Reads will be bringing many of the title in Terry Kay's bibliography to ebook format in 2011 and 2012.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

The Forever Wish of Middy Sweet: A Novel Aug 3, 2020

by Terry Kay

( 75 )

$10.49

Middy Sweet Young, a wealthy widow, returns to her hometown in Northeast Georgia in search of her youth, lured by a dreamy wish shared with Luke Mercer, her high school boyfriend: "One day we’ll be together…" THE FOREVER WISH OF MIDDY SWEET is the story of that prophecy--the former beauty queen and the retired history teacher reuniting fifty years after her vow. It is a prophecy that will haunt Luke. A widower, he has settled comfortably in Creel as a father and grandfather, as a friend to such people as the barber Roy Kennedy, as a surprising and unlikely football legend, as the local historian, as a dedicated volunteer for the library. In a small town where core values have remained relatively unchanged, Luke is the model citizen--quiet, reflective, patient, caring--yet Middy's sudden and unexpected appearance in his life brings with it uncertainty and confusion. He does not know her life has been that of an oppressed trophy wife to a controlling lawyer, or that she has chosen him to be her guide to re-live hallowed memories of youth. He does not know she would share with him unsettling experiences, from her mother's alcoholism to her husband's cruelty. He does not know that hidden in the exuberance of her return to Creel is the destiny of a fragile reality. And he does not know he will be drawn back into his own memories--boyhood, college, his life spent with is late wife, Hannah. For Luke, Middy's search becomes his discovery, leaving him to wonder if she had been right: What might have been is a haunting of the imagination.

Other Formats: Hardcover

The Runaway Jan 11, 2013

by Terry Kay

( 34 )

$4.99

Tom and Son Jesus, two 12-year-old boys--one black and one white born the same hour of the same day--are best friends, bound by deep ties and who spend their days dreaming, fishing, and trying to escape work. But their fun comes to an abrupt halt when they discover a human bone, which later turns out to be part of the skeletal remains of Son Jesus' long missing father. As sheriff Frank Rucker, a World War II hero, begins an investigation into remains, he unmasks the racially motivated killer known only as Pegleg. The sheriff's findings divide the people of Overton County, forcing a surprising conclusion--or beginning of justice.

Set in the 1940s and using the relationships of two boys--one black and the other white--as a springboard for the beginning of desegregation in the South, The Runaway examines the joys, sorrows, conflicts, and racial disharmony of their historical biased environment.

The Valley of Light: A Novel Mar 9, 2010

by Terry Kay

( 53 )

$12.99

A lyrical and poignant gift from one of America's great storytellers.

On a sunny summer day in 1948, Noah Locke arrives in Bowerstown, a small North Carolina community bordered by lakes and set deep in the Valley of Light. A quiet, simple man and a war veteran, Noah has a mystical gift for fishing, yet he remains haunted by the war and by the terrible scenes he witnessed when his infantry unit liberated Dachau. His wandering -- doing odd jobs and catching fish for sale or trade -- is both an escape from his past and a search for a place to call home.

In the valley, Noah is initially treated with amusement by the locals he meets at Taylor Bowers's general store -- until he begins fishing. Once they see his almost magical skills, however, he becomes the talk of the valley and is urged to stay long enough to participate in the annual school fishing contest. He agrees, accepting a job offer by Taylor to paint his store when he isn't filling orders for fish. He finds lodging in an abandoned shack by a small lake the locals call the Lake of Grief and, also, the Lake of No Fish, because they think all the fish have disappeared. Noah knows they are wrong. Beneath the water is a warrior bass waiting to test Noah's gift.

In the way that innocence creates powerful events, Noah meets Eleanor Cunningham, a young widow whose husband supposedly killed himself after returning home from the war. Over the course of a week, Noah will be led into the secret lives of the residents of the Valley of Light, will join them as they mourn a tragedy, and will experience a miracle that will guide him home at last.

Luminous, memorable, and deeply moving, The Valley of Light is the finest work to date from a brilliant storyteller.

Taking Lottie Home: A Novel Feb 26, 2013

by Terry Kay

( 70 )

$6.99

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 the 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 Kidnapping of Aaron Greene Dec 4, 2012

by Terry Kay

( 21 )

$4.99

Aaron Greene is a shy, stay-in-the-background young Jewish boy, the child of shy, stay-in-the-background parents. Only a year out of high school, he has a part-time job as a mailboy in a large Atlanta bank. One morning, on his way to work, he is kidnapped and the kidnappers demand a ransom of ten million dollars – not from his parents, but from the bank that employs him.

The bank rejects the demand.

And what begins as a curious crime – the abduction of an unknown, a nobody – soon ignites a national crusade for Aaron’s safe return, because everyone, in one way or another, understands what it is like to be a nobody.

For the kidnappers, the money has no meaning. The mastermind, Ewell Pender, is a wealthy eccentric, an elderly board member of the bank, yet also the man who organizes the campaign to raise Aaron’s ransom. His criminal associates are young nonconformists, dreamers and daredevils. Keeping Aaron in the luxury of the Pender mansion is, to them, a clever and teasing adventure. For Aaron, it is not life-threatening; it is life-changing.

Caught in the mystery is a journalist who unwittingly is used as a pawn by the kidnappers to tell Aaron’s story, and also a detective who bends rules and follows his instinct as much as his training. For both, the kidnapping reveals a profound understanding of their own lives in the complex workings of the world around them.

Richly written, driven by baffling twists in plot, and featuring powerful portrayals of memorable characters, The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene goes beyond the elements of a classic crime. It is an experiment in human manipulation and behavior, and a riveting study of the passions and apathy historically exhibited by society.

The King Who Made Paper Flowers: A Novel Apr 4, 2016

by Terry Kay

( 68 )

$10.49

When Arthur Benjamin steps from a Greyhound bus in Savannah, Georgia, he is immediately robbed by an affable street magician named Hamby Cahill. It is Hamby's first act of thievery and the remorse of it so overwhelms him that he finds lodging for Arthur in The Castle, a warehouse supposedly owned by Melinda McFadden, an eccentric and fragile grande dame of imagined aristocracy who is known as Lady to the strange assembly of street people she has arbitrarily selected to be her Guests. There, Arthur finds his family-an ex-con shoplifter, a disgruntled seamstress, a young artist suspected of being a hooker, and a former boxer known as Lightning. For Arthur, it is the company that will change his life, as he, in turn, will change the lives of everyone he encounters. Yet, he does not know he will become entangled with political arrogance over a minor traffic mishap, or be targeted for brutality. He does not know he will encounter Wally Whitmire, proponent of the Destiny of the Dominoes, or that he will become an unqualified mayoral candidate put forth to serve as an irritant to the incumbent Harry Geiger. And he does not know he will be looked upon by the people of Savannah-fortunate and unfortunate, alike-as an icon, a beloved figure who wears a cape of invented royalty and distributes paper flowers made of cocktail napkins as gifts of comfort. Arthur knows only that he has found his place and his purpose.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

Shadow Song Mar 9, 2010

by Terry Kay

( 34 )

$15.99

In the summer of 1955, Madison Lee "Bobo" Murphy was a waiter at the Catskills' Pine Hill Inn. A rural Southerner, he had never heard the word meshugge until Avrum Feldman -- a retired New York City furrier -- became his unlikely friend. For Bobo, nothing about that special time and place ever lost its glow: Avrum's obsession with the haunting voice of a famous opera diva, music that no one else could hear; the exotic mingling of Yiddish and German in the dining room; and the girl he met and loved.

In everyone's life, Avrum claimed, there is one grand, undeniable moment that never stops mattering. For Bobo, it was his first glimpse of beautiful Amy Lourie. But, for a wealthy Jewish girl and a Georgia farm boy, the summer had to end, leaving Bobo with the pain of lost love. Nearly forty years later, his children grown and marriage comfortably routine, Bobo comes north once more; there, amidst the haunting hints of Amy's presence, she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The barriers between them are different now. But mysteriously, miraculously, Bobo reawakens the dream of a love larger than himself....

The Book of Marie: A Novel Sep 4, 2015

by Terry Kay

( 43 )

$10.49

In spring 1962, a young black girl named Etta Hemsley is killed at a civil rights demonstration on a university campus in Atlanta. The next day, the home of Jovita Curry, a black woman in Overton, Georgia, is burned. Both events are etched into the memory of Cole Bishop and eerily play out the predictions of a former classmate named Marie Fitzpatrick. Both Cole and Marie are high school seniors when they first meet in fall 1954. Cole, like his classmates, is a native-born Southerner influenced by the traditions of segregation as a way of life. Marie is a recent transplant from Washington, DC, a brilliant and assertive nonconformist with bold predictions about a new world that is about to be ushered in by the force of desegregation. Included in her prophecy is a warning for Cole that will cause him to leave the South to live and teach in Vermont. The odd friendship between the two of them continues after high school in a series of tender and revealing letters. The story revolves around the fiftieth-year reunion of the Overton High School class of 1955, rekindling for Cole memories of Etta Hemsley’s death and the unsolved mystery of the burning of Jovita Curry’s home. His return for the reunion reunites him with classmates who, over time, have accepted a guarded assimilation of the races. He is also reacquainted with two black men Moses Elder, the town’s mayor, and Littlejohn Curry, a reclusive artist who carries the scars of the burned house, and in those encounters, Cole understands clearly the influence of Marie on his life. THE BOOK OF MARIE is the story of a generation, whites and blacks, who ignited the war of change. Yet, it is also as much about the power of place, the finding of home, as it is about the history of events.

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

The Greats of Cuttercane Sep 11, 2011

by Terry Kay

( 13 )

$12.00

When Asa Holbrook Staggs stepped into the cold-water spring that would later bear his name, he was drunk. The date was November 18, 1914. He pulled himself from the water, sober, cold, and converted to a new life in the Lord. And thus began the legend of Asa’s Spring, a pool indiscriminately dispensing favoritism to those who believed (or wondered about) the curative power of its water. These are stories of people born in Cuttercane, Georgia, the place of Asa’s Spring, and who earned minor celebrity from the townsfolk’s highest praise: “He (she) is something else, ain’t he (she)?”

The “something else” is what a Southerner might call a catchall phrase, for it can apply to saint and sinner alike. It means exactly what it implies: the person referenced has made a name for him (her) self in some manner—Asa, the drunk, becoming a war hero; the reigning heavyweight lard watermelon champion and Indian terror, Newell Proudfoot, in a grudge match against the Prichard twins; Felton Eugene Weaver’s rise from whiskey runner to Hollywood movie fame; Elmo Parker and Monroe Dawson in a showdown baseball game between the Claybank Textile Tigers and the Jefferson Bluejays; and, last, the stunning Mattie Mae Blair’s career as the striptease artist, Princess Salome.
Written in the edged-in-humor style of caricature, these stories are shared daily in cafes and other gathering spots in rural communities in the South. It is a practice embedded in the culture, and all it takes for a casual mention to become a tall tale is one storyteller trying to outdo another. If you find yourself in the company of such men and women, pause nearby and eavesdrop. When the snickering turns into a cackle, you will know that someone has been elevated to being “something else.”

Other Formats: Hardcover , Paperback

Bogmeadow’s Wish Mar 31, 2011

by Terry Kay

( 5 )

$12.00

When Cooper Coghlan arrives in Ireland with the cremains of his grandfather, Finn Coghlan, he has one instruction: Let my ashes blow in the wind. You’ll know the place when you come to it. I’ll be there, telling you. He also has tender
memories of his grandfather’s exaggerated stories of Irish wonder and magic— stories of leprechauns and legends and the mysterious power of fate. But he does not have the story of why his grandfather left Ireland as a young man.

Mesmerized by his romantic vision of Ireland, Cooper begins his search with the unknowing help of friends in America who have employed a charming, down on- his-luck Irish actor named Sandy McAfee to con his way into Cooper’s life as his guide. Yet neither is prepared for the presence of Kathleen O’Reilly, a public relations specialist whose tour on behalf of the NewTree campaign is eerily parallel to the travels that Sandy plots in leading Cooper on his hunt for his grandfather’s ghost. And in those landmarks—Waterford, Youghal, Cork, Killarney, the Ring of Kerry, Tralee, Kenmare, Dingle—the fate of the Irish that Finn Coghlan talked of magically brings Cooper and Kathleen together.

Yet, there is a truth between the two of them that not even the enchanting tale of Finn McCool and Sally Cavanaugh, or of Patrick the Believer, can resolve. For that, Cooper must use the one gift bestowed on him as a child by his grandfather —Bogmeadow’s wish.

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