Rating: 
Summary: What is Marion doing now?
Review: I hope Marion Winik's new life - I recently heard her talking about her plans for her second marriage in one of her NPR essays - is less of an emotional carnival ride. I was especially struck by how bravely she lets us see that she was less than a perfect partner...especially in the final years of her Tony's life. This is such a gripping story that I stopped my internal conflict with the appropriateness of raw memoirs and just let myself be pulled along by the tragic spiral of their lives. Marion Winik is a terrific writer, and I wonder if anyone has read her follow-up and enjoyed it as much?
Rating: 
Summary: First Comes Love
Review: I met Marion at a book fair and she recommended First Comes Love to me as the best of her offerings. I had an idea of what the story contained since my sister is a fan. I can understand how Marion loved Tony, despite having the odds stacked against them. How many times has a woman chosen an unsuitable mate? I think that the drugs caused more of a problem than Tony's homosexuality. And Marion's total honesty! I too could write a somewhat juicy account of my early marriage to an alcoholic wife beater, but to do it fairly, I would have to write about the neurotic girl who married him on the rebound from a heterosexual but no less disastrous relationship. I was happy that Tony and Marion resolved most of the issues that were tearing them apart. She was there for him, and loved him even when it was very hard.
Rating: 
Summary: Happy, sad, funny, sometimes weird, just like real life
Review: I met Marion at a book fair and she recommended First Comes Love to me as the best of her offerings. I had an idea of what the story contained since my sister is a fan. I can understand how Marion loved Tony, despite having the odds stacked against them. How many times has a woman chosen an unsuitable mate? I think that the drugs caused more of a problem than Tony's homosexuality. And Marion's total honesty! I too could write a somewhat juicy account of my early marriage to an alcoholic wife beater, but to do it fairly, I would have to write about the neurotic girl who married him on the rebound from a heterosexual but no less disastrous relationship. I was happy that Tony and Marion resolved most of the issues that were tearing them apart. She was there for him, and loved him even when it was very hard.
Rating:
Summary: one hell of a crazy life
Review: I stayed up all night reading this book (well, it could have been my afternoon cappuccino), but not because I loved it. Marion and her family are solidly "alternative," and I guess I kept reading to see what would happen next. When I gave the synopsis to other people ("heroin user marries openly gay man, wants to have his kids even though he's HIV positive"), no one else wants to read it. Weird story, well written.
Rating:
Summary: First Comes Love
Review: I'm disgusted I ever bought this book and would love to have my money back (someone in my book club chose it). All nine members of my book club HATED this book and found Marion Winik's actions/addictions disgusting. She offers no explanation for her self-absorbed, destructive behavior. I promptly gave it away after I read it (not to the library...doesn't belong in a respectable institution like that). Her actions that are documented in this "memoir" are despicable and could have had life-threatening ramifications on innocent children. Do not waste your money or your time.
Rating: 
Summary: No Longer a Fan
Review: I'm sorry. I'm aware of all the favorable comments regarding this book, and no one should question Marion Winik's writing abilities -- "First Comes Love" is a well crafted book -- but, being that it is a memoir, I must confess that I no longer like or respect her as a person. This is not a love story -- it is an expose of a woman who decides she is going to have what she wants, regardless of anyone else's needs. Neither do I see her as someone I should admire for courage or long suffering. Sure, she finally decides to care for him as he dies. That is the least that she should do, as far as I'm concerned. She robbed him if the rest of his life.
Rating:
Summary: No Longer a Fan
Review: I'm sorry. I'm aware of all the favorable comments regarding this book, and no one should question Marion Winik's writing abilities -- "First Comes Love" is a well crafted book -- but, being that it is a memoir, I must confess that I no longer like or respect her as a person. This is not a love story -- it is an expose of a woman who decides she is going to have what she wants, regardless of anyone else's needs. Neither do I see her as someone I should admire for courage or long suffering. Sure, she finally decides to care for him as he dies. That is the least that she should do, as far as I'm concerned. She robbed him if the rest of his life.
Rating:
Summary: No Longer a Fan
Review: I'm sorry. I'm aware of all the favorable comments regarding this book, and no one should question Marion Winik's writing abilities -- "First Comes Love" is a well crafted book -- but, being that it is a memoir, I must confess that I no longer like or respect her as a person. This is not a love story -- it is an expose of a woman who decides she is going to have what she wants, regardless of anyone else's needs. Neither do I see her as someone I should admire for courage or long suffering. Sure, she finally decides to care for him as he dies. That is the least that she should do, as far as I'm concerned. She robbed him if the rest of his life.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating memoir of a REALLY weird marriage
Review: Marion Winik is easy to read. I love her essay style, i've always loved essays. Given her popularity, I assume my attraction to her writing cannot simply be because I grew up in New Jersey in the same sort of upper-middle-class town she did, at the same time she did, moved to Austin TX not too long after she did, and will probably leave not too long after she does, and did a lot of things that I should've contracted HIV from and didn't. [Though, I never married a gay man because THAT is still illegal.]The impression I was left with after reading this book was "My god what an obsessive and self-centered person she is! And what an insane and obsessive and downright horrible person her husband could be. And isn't it lucky they found EACH OTHER and spared the rest of the planet?? And aren't they just fascinating?? Must read for any nosy parker who likes reading about other people's soap opera-esque lives.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreakingly honest
Review: Marion Winik's funny, honest, and ultimately gut-wrenching memoir First Comes Love answers, in the end, what true love is. In clear, unwavering prose, Winik tells of her meeting, marrying, having two children with Tony Heubach, a gay ice-skater. Given their differing sexual orientations -- Winik is straight -- sex never was a big part of their relationship. Drugs, however, were, and it is the drugs which first brought the two together and drove them apart as Tony desperately sought any respite from the AIDS that killed him (neither Winik nor their two children ever tested positive). The most accurate phrase I can come up for Winik and Tony is that they were "soul mates", and this compatibility on levels more intimate than intercourse made their relationship work. Involving as it does drug addiction and AIDS, many parts of this book are sad. Winik and Tony, however, shared many good times together, including a number of years when they were off drugs, were happily married with young children, and before Tony became symptomatic. This book deserves a wide audience both for its honesty and for Winik's marvelous writing.
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