Tommy Hays, Author
Like his previously published works, Tommy Hays’ latest novel, The Marriage Bed, solidly reflects—and is shaped by—place, in this case his own resident city, Asheville. “Place is very important to me, in my life and in my writing,” Hays says. “I always have an emotional response to place, which is probably why I’ve never set a book in a place I haven’t lived.”
Hays says that readers will recognize Asheville’s personality and locales on the novel’s pages. “Asa, the main character, is an English teacher who writes poetry and teaches at UNCA,” he says. “Asa’s wife of 25 years, Betsy, teaches creative writing and literature at Asheville High. They live in an old house in Montford. Much of the novel is set in that wonderful old neighborhood. There are several scenes in Riverside Cemetery.”
Narrated by several characters, the story follows family relationships and the struggles within Asa and Betsy’s marriage. “I think having several points of view gives a greater sense of the community,” Hays says. “It also provides rounder characterizations of the main characters because we see them through various characters’ eyes.”
Inspiration for the story came to him from an unexpected source, he says: “our neighbor’s ailing hemlock—combined with my never-ending tendency to catastrophize.”
The Marriage Bed, March 2026, fiction, hardcover, $27.95, by Tommy Hays, and published by Blair Publishing, Durham, NC. Keep up with readings and events this spring at TommyHays.com/appearances.
