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Overview
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
When Marion Winik fell in love with Tony Heubach during a wild Mardi Gras in New Orleans, her friends shook their heads. For starters, she was straight and he was gay. But Marion and Tony's impossible love turned out to be true enough to produce a marriage and two beautiful sons, true enough to weather drug addiction, sexual betrayal, and the AIDS that would kill Tony at the age of thirty-seven, twelve years after they met.
In a memoir heartbreaking and hilarious by turns, Marion Winik tells a story that is all more powerful for the way in which it defies easy judgments. As it charts the trajectory of a marriage so impossible that it became inevitable, First Comes Love reminds us—poignantly indelibly—that every story is a special case.
Synopsis
From the moment they met, the author and her husband Tony sensed something extraordinary was taking them into uncharted territory. This candid memoir explores that territory: against-all-odds happiness in love, marriage, and parenthood between a straight woman and a gay man. Their story is also an unforgettable journey into the heartbreaking phase of their lives, when AIDS, drug addiction, and betrayal erode their happiness; and the harrowing moment when Marion must help Tony die.
Publishers Weekly
The NPR commentator's account of her passionate but ultimately tragic marriage to a gay man. (June)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
The NPR commentator's account of her passionate but ultimately tragic marriage to a gay man. (June)Library Journal
Having met during a visit to New Orleans, Winik and Tony Heubach felt a strong attraction made complicated by, among other elements, their heavy drug use and Tony's homosexuality. Amazingly, they eventually married and had two sons despite Tony's being diagnosed with AIDS. This is not an AIDS story, however, nor is it a tribute to a man whom Winik portrays with brutal honesty, revealing his weaknesses as well as his uncanny appeal. It is instead a rare glimpse into the very core of a relationship both buoyed by the human spirit and wracked with pain. Winik writes and speaks with clarity and passion, sparing no unpleasant detail of this bittersweet love story. Not seeking sympathy nor apologizing for lives lived on the edge, she draws the listener in immediately, and her story is one that folks won't soon forget. National Public Radio fans will recognize commentator Winik's voice; others will feel fortunate to have discovered this intriguing account. Recommended for most collections.Susan McCaffrey, Sturgis Pub. Sch. Lib., Mich.Kirkus Reviews
Romance, comedy, tragedy, terrible truth, and extraordinary love, as straight woman marries gay man, bears children, and watches their world dissolve in the wake of AIDS.Winik, a commentator for National Public Radio, left an abortive love affair in New York City to spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans and found herself suddenly and inexplicably attracted to Tony, an ex-professional ice skater who was a practicing homosexual. They spent the weekend before Fat Tuesday riding buses, clearing out his old apartment, doing drugs, drinking in the few gay bars that welcomed women. It was only months before Winik moved to New Orleans to be with him, launching a partnership that was short on sex but deep in intimacy and unquestioning mutual acceptance. The prospect of a job for Tony teaching ice skating sent the couple to Austin, Tex. The ice skating job fell through, but Winik found work writing technical manuals and Tony eventually became a successful hairdresser. They married, lost their first child but bore two healthy sons, and were living happily ever after, until Tony developed HIV symptoms whose progression began to chip away at the house that their deep love had built. Tony combined his prescription drugs with street drugs, Winik had a resounding affair, and violence, deceit, and despair curdled their happiness. As Tony neared death, Winik helped him commit suicide. The places they went, from New Orleans bars to New York City jails, and the people they knew, including astutely drawn parents, friends, and siblings, are all part of the story.
Winik's gift for vivid and even ennobling detail frames this remarkable memoir, moving the reader to cry and to laugh—sometimes both at the same time.