The Pleasure Was Mine

Prate Marshbanks proposed to Irene on a muggy July night at Petes Drive-in back in 52. A college graduate and daughter of a prominent lawyer, Irene was an unlikely match for Prate, a housepainter. That their marriage not only survived for fifty years, but flourished, is a source of constant wonder to him. Now Prate faces a new challenge with his beloved Irene. Tommy Hays has rendered an unforgettable character in Prate, who, as he copes with his wifes illness, establishes new bonds with his widowed son and grandson. This is a heartfelt, redemptive story about the power and resilience of family.

Tommy Hays is executive director of the Great Smokies Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and creative writing chair for the Academy at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. His novel In The Family Way received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award in 2000 and was a choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club. He is a graduate of Furman University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.