First Comes Love, the critically heralded memoir by University of Baltimore Prof. Marion Winik, is being rediscovered with a new edition―including a new introduction by the author and an unabridged audiobook―as readers, critics and Winik celebrate its 30th anniversary. The book, which received national attention for its frank and illuminating portrayal of the author's fiery relationship with a man who died from AIDS at 37, is considered to be a groundbreaking moment for the literary genre of memoir. In the intervening decades, memoirists have learned from First Comes Love that frankness is vital, and insight is a moving target.
"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," said Kirkus Reviews. "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."
While the book earned strongly positive recognition upon its publication in 1995―The New York Times, for example, named it a Notable Book, saying "[Winik] has perfected an unblinking
narrative tone that is frequently funny in spite of the fact that much of what she
has to impart is painfully sad"―Winik says she wasn't sure how it would be received.
"In my new introduction, I explain that when I began writing the book in the early
1990s, the now-crowded genre of brutally self-revealing memoirs barely existed; I
thought it would be published as a novel," she says. "My editor told me that it had
to be published as nonfiction, because the crazy, impossible-sounding series of events
it contained was interesting precisely because it was true."
Diana Tesdell, Winik's editor at Vintage Books, adds, "Marion's new introduction provides
fascinating context for her pioneering memoir, which has become even more relevant
and powerfully moving three decades after it burst onto the scene. We hope the new
anniversary edition helps more readers discover and cherish this true classic."
Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water, says, "In my years of clinical care of persons with AIDS, I have heard some extraordinary
stories, but nothing prepared me for First Comes Love. I was riveted, and unable to put this book down. Winik is extraordinary, both for
what she has had the courage to do, and for the ability to write so honestly and with
such transcending force that you feel you will never see your own life quite the same
way again."
Prof. Winik, who teaches memoir writing, publishing, and more at UBalt, has authored
nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead, Above Us Only Sky, Rules for the Unruly, and Highs in the Low Fifties. Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, and elsewhere. Her column in Baltimore Fishbowl has been running since 2011, and she's had a long-running book review show on WYPR.
Winik also reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, People, and Kirkus, among others. Among her honors and awards, she is the recipient of the 2023 National
Book Critics Circle Service Award.
Learn more about the new edition of First Comes Love.
Learn more about Prof. Marion Winik.