Hall of Fame Author Recalls Enduring Book, Movie

Georgia Hall of Fame author Terry Kay shared insights and incidents surrounding “To Dance With the White Dog” and the movie based on his enduring book at a “meet and mingle” with the author in the Community Room at Duluth City Hall recently.

About 60 fans turned out, bringing their own copies of his book and purchasing new ones for him to sign. They also purchased copies of his latest novel “Bogmeadow’s Wish: A Love Story Set in Ireland” released in March to add to their collections.

“Bogmeadow’s Wish” is “a summer read,“ Kay said. “I always wanted to write one.” It’s about a romance that develops between a young man who returns to Ireland to scatter his grandfather’s ashes and a young woman he meets there. Kay, who now has 11 books to his credit, announced that a 12th book, a collection of short stories, is coming out in the fall.

Kay’s appearance at City Hall was part of Duluth Reads, sponsored by the Duluth Fine Arts League, which encouraged the community to read the same book and discuss it. The project also included a March 11 showing of the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie “To Dance With the White Dog,” starring real-life couple Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, and a March 3 book talk at the Duluth Branch of the Gwinnett County Public Library. Kay surprised everyone there by showing up at the book talk. “To Dance With the White Dog” was published in 1990, and the Hall of Fame movie premiered on The Hallmark Channel in 1993.

Duluth Mayor Nancy Harris presented Kay with a framed proclamation declaring March 19 “Terry Kay Day” and a key to the city. “It’s enclosed in glass, so he can’t really use it,” Harris remarked. Kay was delighted. “This is an honor. I’ve never been given a key to the city before,” he said. “I’ll hang it in my office at home.”

A journalist who segued into public relations, Kay described himself as a reluctant fiction writer who was prodded by colleagues into penning his first novel “The Year the Lights Came On” about electrification of the rural community where he grew up and later “To Dance With the White Dog” about his experiences with his aging father, a North Georgia nurseryman renowned for his pecan trees. Kay is now a full-time writer.

“It’s an honor to have this book acknowledged, and for it to be acknowledged along with me,” Kay said. But, he told the audience, “I never meant it for you. I wrote the book to make copies and give them to my sisters and brothers as a way of acknowledging the life of our parents.” Kay, a native of Royston, GA, was born the 11th of 12 brothers and sisters.

The book, and the movie, too, is a love story about the relationship between Sam Peek, the character based on Kay’s father, and Cora, his wife of 57 years. A mysterious white dog starts appearing to Sam after Cora suddenly dies and stays with him until just before his own death. Initially, Sam is the only one who can see the white dog, but eventually his family begins to see the dog, too. A touching relationship develops between Peek and the white dog. It turns out that the white dog is really Cora, who assumed the form of the white dog to watch over him.

When Kay's father died, his mother had been deceased for many years. In the movie, she had just died. The white dog story is true. “There was a white dog. It did appear” before his father's death, Kay said. “My father was the only one who could touch the dog. None of us got close to this animal.”

The white dog reportedly has made other appearances. Goosebumps started popping up on members of the audience as Kay related incidents that have occurred since the book was published. At a book signing in South Carolina, he said, a young woman approached him and announced: “I have a white dog. My father died. I was inconsolable. Two or three days after he died, it appeared.” She came in with the dog, and it wouldn’t let anyone else pet it, Kay said. In Minnesota, he said, a fan was grief-stricken after her father passed away until someone gave her a copy of “To Dance With the White Dog.” After reading it, she reported, “Everything was OK.”

In another instance, Kay was visiting a funeral home when he was shown a copy of his book and informed that a copy is given to every grieving family. “That was really a compliment,” he said. The author also said he was amazed at the many letters sent to him about animals (dogs, cats, a bird) appearing after a loved one died. “For a while,” he said, “the White Dog Phenomenon was being taught in psychology classes.”

“I’ve seen the movie three times, and I never will see it again,” Kay stated. While it “quintessentially” is similar, the movie is different from his book, he said. And although the farm selected for the movie resembled the family homeplace, it was filmed in Americus in South Georgia rather than North Georgia where the book was set.

It was July, it was hot, and the gnats were flying as usual below “the gnat line,” he recalled. Kay said that he didn’t like the addition of a grandson to the story nor the actor who portrayed him. The word “fetched,” rarely used in North Georgia, was overused in the dialogue, he further said. "It's not my book."

Cronyn had read the book while on vacation and declared he wanted to play the part of Sam Peek and would win an Emmy for it, according to Kay. “He got the Emmy on the day Jessica Tandy died,” Kay said. Cronyn is now deceased, too.

Mayor Harris recognized the Duluth Reads Committee and sponsors, whose support allowed all three events to be free and open to the public. DFAL annually hosts two fund-raising events “Arts at Twilight” in July and a “Holiday Walking Tour of Homes” in December. Proceeds fund scholarships to Duluth seniors planning to pursue art careers. “It honors me that you’ve chosen this book. I’m glad that you’re doing this program and you have this organization supporting the arts,” Kay said.

After signing books, Kay, a one-time Gwinnett resident who now lives near Athens, tapped the framed proclamation lying on the table with his finger and reiterated to Harris how really proud he was of the key. “My mother would have wept,” he said. Three things that have happened would have impressed his mother and moved her to tears -- Reader's Digest publishing an article he had written, the making of his book into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, and now receiving the key to the city, Kay said. Three of his novels have been made into Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, and one was selected for a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book.

Kay admitted to the mayor and a few lingerers-on that he had strolled through Duluth Church Cemetery next to City Hall prior to the event. Kay said he often does this when visiting different places. Once sued by someone whose name was the same as a character in one of his books, he explained that he collects names from tombstones and “mixes them up” for later literary use. The author said he was intrigued by a single red rose, now wilted, left at a gravesite.

“To Dance With the White Dog” is essentially a love story, and “Bogmeadow’s Wish: A Love Story Set in Ireland” is a romance. Is it possible that the rose in the Duluth cemetery may inspire a new Terry Kay novel?