To Dance with the White Dog

by Terry Kay

Overview

Sam Peek's children are worried. Since that "saddest day" when Cora, his beloved wife of fifty-seven good years, died, no one knows how he will survive. How can this elderly man live alone on his farm? How can he keep driving his dilapidated truck down to the fields to care for his few rows of pecan trees? And when Sam begins telling his children about a dog as white as the pure driven snow — that seems invisible to everyone but him — his children think that grief and old age have finally taken their toll.
But whether the dog is real or not, Sam Peek — "one of the smartest men in the South when it comes to trees" — outsmarts them all. Sam and the White Dog will dance from the pages of this bittersweet novel and into your heart, as they share the mystery of life, and begin together a warm and moving final rite of passage.
Winner of the Southeastern Library Association's Outstanding Author Award.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780671726737
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	11/01/1991
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	153,091
Product dimensions:	5.42(w) x 8.06(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Terry Kay's novels include Taking Lottie Home, The Runaway, Shadow Song, and the now-classic To Dance with the White Dog, twice nominated for the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award, and winner of the Southeastern Library Association Book of the Year Award. Terry Kay has been married for 44 years and has four children and seven grandchildren. He lives in Athens, Georgia.

What People are Saying About This

Desmond M. Tutu

A hauntingly beautiful story about love, family, and relationships

Anne Rivers Siddons

To Dance with the White Dog is what literature is — or should be — all about....Kay is simply a miraculous writer....This book...burns with life.

Reading Group Guide

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1) Why do you think the author chose to tell the story from a third person omniscient point of view instead of using a first person narrator? How might your reading experience have been affected had it been told only through the eyes of Sam?
2) How do outside forces, like weather, seem to play upon what the main character may be feeling? In what ways does the physical world relate to what is happening in Sam's emotional landscape? Why does the author choose to develop this parallel between Sam and the world that surrounds him? What do we learn about him that we might not otherwise learn?
3) Sam's journal is a substantive part of this novel and becomes more and more important as the story moves on. In chapter thirteen, his journal entries make up nearly the entire chapter. In what ways is this journal almost like a character in and of itself? How does it help shape plot, and what kind of insights does it give us into Sam's loneliness and his love for his family? If the journal entries had been left out, how would this novel be different?
4) Talk about setting as it is presented in this novel. How does the serene, natural beauty of the farm highlight larger themes that the author may be trying to explore?
5) Kate and Carrie's concern for their father, and their desire to treat him like a child or an invalid, reaches an almost comic level at many points in this novel. All children worry about elderly parents, especially ones with health problems, but why do you think these two women go so far in their attempts to take care of Sam? Is this strictly comic relief, or do you think the author might be making a more profound statement about growing old?
6) It is interesting that one of the most important characters, Cora, is not physically present, having died before the novel begins. In what ways do we get a sense of who this woman was, even though she is absent? Did you feel that you had a clear picture of her character? What kind of woman was she?
7) The white dog is somewhat of an illusive presence: no one is sure whether it is a real dog, a ghost dog, or a dog at all. Howard Cook observes, late in the novel: "Maybe the lesson the Lord had intended for him to learn was in the white dog.... Maybe the dog was like the whale in the Jonah story, or like the lions with Daniel, or the doves of Noah's ark. Maybe the dog was the message and Sam Peek only the messenger." Keeping this quote in mind, talk about what the white dog means for individual characters and what she ultimately might represent in the world of this story. Did you believe that she was, as Sam insists in the end, the ghost of Cora?
8) In the same scene, Howard Cook also thinks to himself, "The Lord had finally put Sam Peek and Howard Cook together, and there was a reason for it, a reason other than helping Sam Peek find his way to Madison." Do you think there is divine intervention throughout this novel? Can you think of any other instances that seem to imply that a greater power is at work, or any which call that idea into question?
9) Why do you think it is so important to Sam to make it to the reunion? What is the significance of the picture of Cora and Marshall that he takes with him? Why has he chosen not to share it with his children?
10) If you had to describe Sam to a friend, what kinds of adjectives would you use? Is he a happy man? A proud man? A smart man? In what ways, if any, does he change by the end of the novel? What people or events cause him to change?
11) At the end of the story, the author states that this novel is based on "the truth — as I realized it — of my parents." Did this revelation change your reading of the story? How might your experience with this novel have been different had this disclaimer been made at the beginning of the book?

Editorial Reviews

"A master storyteller."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A hauntingly beautiful story about love, family, and relationships"

The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu

"To Dance with the White Dog is what literature is — or should be — all about....Kay is simply a miraculous writer....This book...burns with life."

Anne Rivers Siddons

"This short book moves like poetry....A loving eulogy to old age....A tender celebration of life, made poignant by death being so close at hand."

Los Angeles Times

"Terry Kay is a perfect writer for those who love to read. His prose contains music and passion and fire. His work is tender and heartbreaking and memorable."

New York Times bestselling author Pat Conroy

"Terry Kay is a perfect writer for those who love to read. His prose contains music and passion and fire. His work is tender and heartbreaking and memorable."

"This short book moves like poetry....A loving eulogy to old age....A tender celebration of life, made poignant by death being so close at hand."

"Manages to texture a plethora of everyday details with a kind of subtle, supernatural resonance."

"To Dance with the White Dog is what literature is — or should be — all about....Kay is simply a miraculous writer....This book...burns with life."

"A hauntingly beautiful story about love, family, and relationships"

"A master storyteller."

From the Publisher