"'My wife has gone. I can't say that I blame her. ... She had probably had enough of my temper, my dark moods, my foul mouth, my all-around disagreeable self. ... She had probably had enough of what most everybody wondered and some, over the years, were rude enough to ask: How in the world did a tall, thin, fair-skinned beauty and one of the most respected high school English teachers ... in all of South Carolina ... wind up married to a short, dark, fat-faced, jug-eared house painter?' That pithy summary sounds like the prelude to a typical novel about divorce and infidelity, but for Hays it serves as a setup for the transformation of a family in which an older man cares for his wife during her descent into Alzheimer's. The transformation begins when Prate Marshbanks, the remarkable, curmudgeonly protagonist, gets a visitor for the summer: his nine-year-old grandson, Jackson, whose mother died in a car accident several years before. But, despite Jackson's grieving presence, Marshbanks remains preoccupied with his own battle to ensure compassionate care for his wife, whom he has had to place in a nursing home. Hays's elegiac, penetrating description of Prate's marriage frames the landscape of this brilliant novel about love, loss, marriage and family. He offers a grim but hopeful treatment of a difficult subject, and his elegant writing and sharp, tender portraits of the Marshbanks make a potent combination." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Once in a blessed while, in this era of edgy, postmodern fiction, you come across a novel that is old-fashioned in the best sense." Charlotte Observer

"[A] folksy, heartfelt paean to the deep love of a long marriage." The Orlando Sentinel

"Most notable of all is the love with which Hays weaves his tale. Many of his characters create art to find affirmation of life in the face of devastating pain. Hays, who has lost a loved one to Alzheimer's himself, has surely done the same with this lovely novel." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Colloquial in tone, braced by its narrator's stoic, plainspoken candor, Hays's latest outing feels timely and true. An intimate, loving portrait of a dreaded disease's devastating effects." Kirkus Reviews

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.