Our second book club interview for this year features Tommy Hays chatting with Bradley Sides about his recent novel, The Marriage Bed. If you missed Bradley’s introduction to the book, don’t forget to check it out before you watch.
As much as this book is about grief and love, it also very much considers fatherhood and survival. How does a flawed man make amends with his children, especially a son that he doesn’t fully understand? How does this same man keep going forward when all he’s ever known is taken away? These are the kinds of questions that I kept thinking of as I read this fantastic novel.
FICTION The Marriage Bed By Tommy Hays Blair Published March 24, 2026
Bradley Sides is the author of two short story collections, Those Fantastic Lives and Crocodile Tears Didn't Cause the Flood, a 2024 Book of the Year finalist at Southern Literary Review. His fiction has been featured on LeVar Burton Reads, and his reviews, interviews, and essays appear at Chapter 16, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Southern Review of Books, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife in Madison, Alabama, where, on most days, he can be found teaching writing and literature at Calhoun Community College. His next book, The Volcano Keeper, will release in October 2026 from Regal House Publishing.
Southern Review of Books 