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The Pleasure Was Mine: A Novel
Prate Marshbanks proposed to his future wife on a muggy July night at Pete's Drive-in back in '52. "She said yes to me between bites of a slaw burger all-the-way." A college graduate and daughter of a prominent lawyer, Irene was an unlikely match for Prate, a high school dropout. He lived his married life aware of the question on people's minds: How in the world did a tall, thin, fair-skinned beauty and one of the most respected high school English teachers in all of Greenville County, in all of South Carolina for that matter, wind up married to a short, dark, fat-faced, jug-eared house painter? That their marriage not only survived for fifty years, but flourished, is a source of constant wonder to Prate. Now he faces a new challenge with Irene.
From the author of In The Family Way, a novel the Atlanta Constitution called "an instant classic" and the Charlotte Observer praised as "a lovely, moving book," comes a powerful story of hard-earned hope. The Pleasure Was Mine takes place during a critical summer in the life of Prate Marshbanks, when he retires to care for his wife, who is gradually slipping away. To complicate things, Prate's son, Newell, a recently widowed single father, asks Prate to keep nine-year-old Jackson for the summer. Though Prate is irritated by the presence of his moody grandson, during the summer Jackson helps tend his grandmother, and grandfather and grandson form a bond. As Irene's memory fades, Prate, a hardworking man who has kept to himself most of his life, has little choice but to get to know his family.
With elegance and skillful economy of language, Tommy Hays renders an unforgettable character in Prate Marshbanks. The Pleasure Was Mine is at once a quietly wrenching portrayal of grief, a magical and romantic story about the power of love, and an unexpectedly moving take on the resilience of family.
From the author of In The Family Way, a novel the Atlanta Constitution called "an instant classic" and the Charlotte Observer praised as "a lovely, moving book," comes a powerful story of hard-earned hope. The Pleasure Was Mine takes place during a critical summer in the life of Prate Marshbanks, when he retires to care for his wife, who is gradually slipping away. To complicate things, Prate's son, Newell, a recently widowed single father, asks Prate to keep nine-year-old Jackson for the summer. Though Prate is irritated by the presence of his moody grandson, during the summer Jackson helps tend his grandmother, and grandfather and grandson form a bond. As Irene's memory fades, Prate, a hardworking man who has kept to himself most of his life, has little choice but to get to know his family.
With elegance and skillful economy of language, Tommy Hays renders an unforgettable character in Prate Marshbanks. The Pleasure Was Mine is at once a quietly wrenching portrayal of grief, a magical and romantic story about the power of love, and an unexpectedly moving take on the resilience of family.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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234 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
April 21, 2010
This is the best thing I've read in forever--and it never made the best sellers. It is a beautiful story about Prate Marshbanks, an aging housepainter with jug ears, who deals with his wife's Alzheimer's on a daily basis. In fact, he says, "Every day with Alzheimer's is like a first date." In his eyes he never measured up to his tall, beautiful English teacher wife. Then in one summer while dealing with her, he has to care for a nine-year-old vegetarian grandson who talks little after the death of his own mother a few years prior. In this summer this crusty old man with his acerbic, terse wit learns more about life and love than ever before--and convinces the reader that life is still worth living. The book is well written with convincing dialogue that is just witty enough to avoid the morbidity that could accompany such a topic.
September 5, 2009
I heard Tommy Hays at South Carolina Book Festival several years ago and he talked about his dad who had Alzheimer's. I bought the book as my mom was struggling with her memory. I now am my mom's caretaker. I appreciated the sensitivity that Hays used to deal with such a heartbreaking disease. I so understand about those moments of laughter and those times of tears.
April 17, 2010
"The Pleasure Was Mine" is a beautiful story of Prate Marshbanks, a man dealing with his role as a caretaker. Prate's wife of many years is suffering with Alzheimer’s to the point where he has had to put her in a home. But the story isn't just about the disease. It is also about Prate's relationship with his son, Newell, and his grandson, Jackson. It is about Billie, the woman who lives next door and who was a friend of his wife. Billie must have heard many great stories about Prate, because she puts up with his ornery behavior and is there when he needs her. What I loved about this book was that stories of Alzheimer’s victims are often either depressing or unbelievably saccharine. Tommy Hays has not succumbed to either of those problems. This is a carefully crafted work that has moments of sadness and moments of joy, but is always honest and always believable.
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April 9, 2014I am ashamed that I was sucked into this bit of silly story. If this is the best that a South Carolina fiction writer can do, then I'm ashamed for that as well. I'm also ashamed that such illustrious figures as Josephine Humphries, Walter Edgar, and Reynolds Price (oops, he's a North Carolinian, guess there are no more South Carolinians to pay off for a review...) would praise this book (altho Walter Edgar, a wonderful South Carolina historian-writer in his own right is known at least to me to promote South Carolina writers just because they are FROM HERE). I'm also ashamed that this man teaches writing at my alma matter, UNC. I'm also ashamed of myself for reading the whole book. Donna Tartt and Kate Atkinson here I come….
July 14, 2008
I was reluctant to start this book as I thought I would cry my way through it. While I did get teary in parts near the end, for the most part it was not the total downer you would expect. The account through the husband's eyes of losing his wife to Alzheimer's is poignant but not mushy. Makes you thankful for what you have and makes you think about what may come down the road. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but maybe that says something in and of itself.
December 28, 2015
An absolutely beautiful book. This book reminds us of what is most important and that is okay to ask for help. Wonderful!
November 3, 2017
Hmm... can’t say I was all that impressed with this book as the reviews on GoodReads and Amazon led me to believe I might be. It felt like I was reading a novel composed by a creative writing student who was trying to capture every single sight, sound and smell of every moment to impress the teacher. In addition, the author tried to create a folksy image by dumbing down the vocabulary of the narrator and it didn’t ring quite true. Even a non-college educated house painter knows what a fertility specialist (“help-it-along-doctor”) and a minivan (“the kind whose back doors open on both sides”) are, particularly when his bedtime reading is Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Additionally, all of the characters in the novel seemed destined for sainthood, particularly Billie, a financially stable, home-owning, attractive young woman with absolutely no social life of her own, and who spends all of her free time caring for the next door neighbor’s grandson or visiting the old man’s wife in the nursing home. Seriously, where in the real world does such a woman exist? As you’re reading the novel, particularly with its hyperfocus on capturing scenery detail that doesn’t add to the story, you get the feeling that the author’s primary goal was to craft a book to be made into a Hallmark movie. On that level, this book works well.
February 26, 2018
It is obvious (and confirmed on the back cover) that this writer has personal experience with someone with Alzheimer's. The "fictional" antics of Irene were so reminiscent of people I've known with Alzheimer's that I had to keep reminding myself I was reading fiction and not a memoir. He also knows a bit about how young boys behave with flashlights - on the spot. A very enjoyable story with as happy an ending as can be.
March 24, 2019
A gentle, thoughtful exploration of a husband and wife living with Alzheimer's and it's effects on the family. I really did not want to read this book but felt compelled to give it a try due to my book club. I was pleasantly surprised. It is straight forward, honest, sweet, and, about all hopeful. Hopeful that in the midst of such remorse and devastation, love and commitment triumphs. The author lives in my town, another reason to read the book. So glad I did.
November 17, 2019
Tommy Hays was one of the teachers in the North Carolina Writers Network conference that I attended last weekend. I appreciated his ability to engage the class, even with a large group, and his gentle humor.
This book is a sweet look at a fifty-year-old marriage between a house painter and a schoolteacher who develops Alzheimers. When she can't remember the word for bed, she asks him "When are you coming to the place we lie down together."
This book is a sweet look at a fifty-year-old marriage between a house painter and a schoolteacher who develops Alzheimers. When she can't remember the word for bed, she asks him "When are you coming to the place we lie down together."
January 4, 2019
I was enchanted by this book, it was just so "real". This is another book that I am going to have to purchase for my own personal library. I could really relate to the story line as my father-in-law went through the same struggle of losing his wife (my husband's step mother) to Alzheimer's disease.
March 12, 2023
One of the blurbs in the front of this book calls it transcendent magic, and it is! You might not think that the story of a man slowly losing his wife to Alzheimer's would be a page turner, but it is! You might not think that a "quiet book" could speak to you so loudly, but it does. This is a must read! A must!
October 12, 2023
My grandparents have been together 58 years. My grandpa takes care of my grandma now, she has Louie Bodies Dementia. This book should be handed out to the families of loved ones suffering these diseases. Absolutely stunning depiction of a more than 50 year love affair and everything that comes along with it. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
December 10, 2019
Recently found this on my bookshelf from a few years ago - a very sweet story by a local author about a man whose life is changed by his young grandson after his wife is put in a nursing home for dementia.
December 9, 2022
I have been reading consistently for about a year now. This is the most moving piece I have read so far. Not only did I cry a few times, but laughed, gasped, and smiled as well. This is a beautiful book.
December 24, 2022
Started good and then...... I don't know if I lost interest or it just drug on
July 11, 2023
This book was similar to The Notebook. I cried... and cried. And hoped to find a partner like that.
February 13, 2024
I enjoyed this story of a family living with Alzheimer’s and other various life issues.
March 29, 2025
What a beautiful book! It made me laugh and cry. Well write and it draws you in and let’s you realize that “Happiness has no expiration date”.
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April 27, 2025wonderful easy to read love story!
September 28, 2025
Loved it! I’m reading it for the second time, and some tears shed because I have lived thru people I know who have had Alzheimer’s.
February 15, 2026
A quaint and lovely read
January 2, 2017
Such a wonderful read. I loved the entire story front to cover
You just have to read
You just have to read
February 22, 2021
What a SWEET book. It shows the hard side of having a loved one with Alzheimers, and how it can affect a caregiver.
May 1, 2012
“The Pleasure was Mine” tells the story of retired house painter Prate Marshbanks whose wife of fifty years, Irene, is slowly succumbing to the effects of Alzheimer’s. He has made the difficult decision to place Irene in an assisted living facility, and he’s dealing with the constant worry of whether she’s being properly looked after and guilt over leaving her in a home.
His son Newell, a well-respected artist, calls Prate with the news that he’s been invited to be artist-in-residence at Penland, a center for craft education in the Blue Ridge Mountains, for six weeks, and Prate reluctantly agrees to keep his nine-year-old grandson Jackson for the summer.
Having lost his mother in a car crash a few years previously, Jackson is a quiet, serious child whom Prate just doesn’t quite understand or know how to relate to, and their summer together looms ahead like an interminable burden. But as the summer progresses, and Prate and Jackson learn how to live with each other, they both begin to come to terms with the circumstances of their lives.
As Prate’s story is told, his memories mapping out the story of his life with Irene, it is evident just how much he is losing by the slow deterioration of his beloved wife, and how difficult it is to allow others to assist him.
At first glance, “The Pleasure was Mine” seems to be a story about Alzheimer’s and how it affects a family, but that is an entirely too simple description. “Pleasure” is about the relationships between fathers and sons, and husbands and wives, and friends and neighbors. It’s about how those around us can shape who we are.
His son Newell, a well-respected artist, calls Prate with the news that he’s been invited to be artist-in-residence at Penland, a center for craft education in the Blue Ridge Mountains, for six weeks, and Prate reluctantly agrees to keep his nine-year-old grandson Jackson for the summer.
Having lost his mother in a car crash a few years previously, Jackson is a quiet, serious child whom Prate just doesn’t quite understand or know how to relate to, and their summer together looms ahead like an interminable burden. But as the summer progresses, and Prate and Jackson learn how to live with each other, they both begin to come to terms with the circumstances of their lives.
As Prate’s story is told, his memories mapping out the story of his life with Irene, it is evident just how much he is losing by the slow deterioration of his beloved wife, and how difficult it is to allow others to assist him.
At first glance, “The Pleasure was Mine” seems to be a story about Alzheimer’s and how it affects a family, but that is an entirely too simple description. “Pleasure” is about the relationships between fathers and sons, and husbands and wives, and friends and neighbors. It’s about how those around us can shape who we are.
May 30, 2012
The Pleasure Was Mine is a quiet book. The foothills of North Carolina are not fast-paced, and the people are hard-working, tax-paying folk. While you're reading The Pleasure Was Mine, you realize that it's easy to read Hays's crisp, clear descriptions, his incredibly audible dialogue. It's easy to laugh and cry with his characters. There's no pretension here, this isn't a book about showing off a particularly quirky writing style, not about making a statement, not about introducing a new trick into the routine. And although this deals with a man who must accept that his wife is fading slowly into Alzheimer's, this isn't a problem novel. Hays isn't trying to pointedly address Alzheimer's, he isn't suggesting a solution. Instead, this is a novel that deals with learning to love the moment that you have now, because that might be all you have. This life, this moment, this second, is all you can be guaranteed from second to second, and the only place you can really know is home is the place you are with the people who love you.
Also? I cried. I very rarely cry in books. I wept like a small child. But in a good way, in a way where after you're done crying, you feel great. You feel like your soul just took a shower or something. Which, that can only be a sign that you truly love these characters, that they have been absorbed into your heart, and you care about them, truly and viscerally.
This book is a wonder. A quiet, beautiful wonder.
Also? I cried. I very rarely cry in books. I wept like a small child. But in a good way, in a way where after you're done crying, you feel great. You feel like your soul just took a shower or something. Which, that can only be a sign that you truly love these characters, that they have been absorbed into your heart, and you care about them, truly and viscerally.
This book is a wonder. A quiet, beautiful wonder.
December 20, 2008
This book was our One City, One Book selection this year. This was an engaging read. The story deals with a family coping with the early stages of Alzheimer's. At first I thought I would have to abandon it because I don't like bad news and sadness. But, the story is more about family and discovering love than about disease. One important tidbit was that the mother (the Alzheimer's patient) had always been so warm and nurturing that she had unintentionally blocked the evolution of relationships among the other family memebers. All eyes turned to her. When she became lost in her Alzheimer's fog, the family members discovered each other and banded together in love. An easy read with a warm message.
August 23, 2014
A little too predictable but if you are looking for a good book to read right before bed, or in the waiting room at your doctor's office, this is perfect. It is a book of an older couple, Prate and Irene; Irene has Alzheimer's and Prate has just made the decision to put her in a home, where he visits everyday, even when it becomes clear that Irene doesn't remember him much of the time. It is about this time when their son, Newell, needs to go on a retreat of some sorts and asks his father to watch his son, Jackson. Add the neighbor Billie who is good friends with Irene and you get a pretty darn good book of acceptance, letting go, letting people in, and life after the loss of someone you love greatly.
January 11, 2011
I started this book today and am reading it for the Alamance Reads program. Every 2 years our county libraries host a book that the entire county is encouraged to read. Kick off lecture and ceremonies start on January 18th. We enjoyed the last book the county picked and enjoy participating in the events and activities hosted by all the different county libraries.
Absolutely fabulous Book! The story is so sad and sweet. It makes me want to take more time with the people and things that are most important to me. I think sometimes we lose perspective in the daily grind and it's books like this that bring us back to how to really make the most of our time.
Absolutely fabulous Book! The story is so sad and sweet. It makes me want to take more time with the people and things that are most important to me. I think sometimes we lose perspective in the daily grind and it's books like this that bring us back to how to really make the most of our time.
June 22, 2012
This was the 2008 GSO One City One Book pick but somehow I missed it. So I am reading it now..
OK I finished it. The first 3/4ths were really pretty predictable and I did keep putting it down, but it was an easy enough read I figured I'd finish it. The last bit of the book left me holding back sobs from worry and joy. I can see why it would be selected as a book group type read. It is a enlightening look at Alzheimer's and families who are loving their way through it. I'd recommend it to someone who is coping with the disease in a loved one. It was kind of like getting advice from someone who had dealt with it, the mistakes they made and the unexpected joys...
OK I finished it. The first 3/4ths were really pretty predictable and I did keep putting it down, but it was an easy enough read I figured I'd finish it. The last bit of the book left me holding back sobs from worry and joy. I can see why it would be selected as a book group type read. It is a enlightening look at Alzheimer's and families who are loving their way through it. I'd recommend it to someone who is coping with the disease in a loved one. It was kind of like getting advice from someone who had dealt with it, the mistakes they made and the unexpected joys...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews