The pleasure was mine / Tommy Hays.

ISBN: 9780312339326
ISBN: 0312339321
ISBN: 031233933X
Physical Description: x, 255 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: First edition
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : St. Martin's Press, [2005]
Copyright: &copy;2005

Summary:

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 mines: 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. During a critical summer in the life of Prate Marshbanks, 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 at first by the presence of his moody grandson, over the summer his feelings toward Jackson change as his grandson helps him tend Irene. 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.--dust cover