The Marriage Bed

“In The Marriage Bed, truths long hidden are revealed, not only in Asa, the grieving husband, but others affected by the tragedy at the novel’s center. All are fully human in their flaws and strengths, including characters a lesser writer would depict as mere stereotypes. The Marriage Bed is an exceptional novel—perfectly paced, riveting, unrelentingly honest and wise in its depiction of what William Faulkner called ‘the human heart in conflict with itself.’ A remarkable achievement.” —Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Caretaker

“What a terrific novel this is. With scrupulous and warm honesty, it traces the intricacies of loyalty and betrayal in a long and loving marriage—and the shocks of life in a mortal body. A beautifully accurate book, with its own astute surprises.” —Joan Silber, author of Improvement, Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

“Tommy Hays has long been one of my favorite writers working today, and The Marriage Bed only deepens my love for his fiction. No one can tell the stories of old love and young love and the inherent complications of both as well as Hays, and there’s certainly no one who can tell them more poignantly.” —Wiley Cash, author of A Land More Kind Than Home and The Last Ballad

“You know when you’re reading a book and you just can’t put it down? Tommy Hays has written that kind of book. It flows like a river, every page glides into the next page and you just have to find out what happens next. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Jon Mayes, review from Advance Reading Copy Read the complete review

“The Marriage Bed is a novel with an intense and detailed focus on the nature of family, explored through the lens of one particular family.” —Terry Roberts, review from Mountain Xpress Read the complete review

“The Marriage Bed is both powerful and quiet at once, a novel of immense insight into the difficulties and joys of how we try to love one another.” —Lewis Buzbee, review from LitStack Read the complete review

A freak accident comes on the heels of a startling revelation—laying bare the foundation of a marriage, and a husband is left to grapple with the aftermath.

A poetry professor at a small college in Asheville, NC, Asa Flowers, comes home one stormy evening to find his wife Betsy inexplicably distraught. As the evening goes on, the couple end up in a heated argument that sends Asa to sleep out in their garage apartment for the first time in twenty-five years of marriage. The next morning, he wakes to blue sky and an altered world.

Unfolding over a few tense weeks and told from multiple points of view, this novel explores how a tragedy can assume as many shapes as the people it touches. Asa finds himself reckoning with torn feelings about his marriage and confusion about how to proceed in his complicated relationships with his adult children. As he gradually absorbs revelations—so much he didn’t know or understand during his long marriage—he finds himself drawn uneasily toward a new world, one in which he must shed much of his old identity if he is to survive and, more important, rededicate himself to being a father.

The Marriage Bed is available now from fine booksellers everywhere.