This fall, thousands of people in Greensboro, N.C., will read and discuss "The Pleasure Was Mine," a novel by Tommy Hays, noted Asheville author and UNC Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program director. A host of citywide events have been planned in conjunction with the reading, including a reception, readings and lectures.

"The Pleasure Was Mine" is the story of three men: Prate Marshbanks, his grown son Newell, and his nine-year-old grandson Jackson – as they come to terms with the fading of Irene, the heart and center of the family. Set in Greenville, S.C. and Western North Carolina, the book is narrated by Prate, a prickly house painter who retires to care for Irene, his beloved wife who suffers from Alzheimer’s and had to be admitted to a nursing home. As Prate adjusts to these life changes, Newell, a recently widowed artist, needs to spend the summer at Penland School of Crafts. He leaves Jackson, his reticent, bookish son, with Prate for the summer. Prate finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to finally get to know his moody grandson, who insists on going with Prate to the nursing home every day and maintaining the very strong connection with his grandmother.

Kirkus Reviews has given "The Pleasure Was Mine" a starred review, calling it "an intimate, loving portrait of a dreaded disease's devastating effects." The book is "colloquial in tone, braced by its narrator's stoic, plainspoken candor. Hays' latest outing feels timely and true."

Tommy Hays

Also this fall, "The Pleasure Was Mine" will be the focus of the All-Campus Read at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C. Earlier this year, the book was chosen for the Greenville, S.C. Amazing Read, that city's first communitywide reading of a single book. Previously, "The Pleasure Was Mine" was read on National Public Radio's "Radio Reader" hosted by Dick Estell and South Carolina ETV-Radio's "Southern Read" hosted by Walter Edgar. It was also a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance 2006 Fiction Award.

Hays is the author of two other novels, "Sam's Crossing" and "In the Family Way," which was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. He is director of UNC Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program and lecturer in the University's Master of Liberal Arts program. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, he holds a bachelor's degree in English from Furman University and a master's of fine arts degree in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. Hays lives in Asheville with his wife and two children.