Twelve memoirs of widowhood

Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (2019) and First Comes Love (1996; reissued with a new introduction in 2026). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011.

[Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (December 2009); Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (June 2013); Writers Read: Marion Winik (June 2013)]

A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.

At Publishers Weekly Winik tagged twelve top widow memoirs, including:

The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards: A Memoir
Jessica Waite

This title is hard to resist, but what about that “dead bastard”’s son, who was nine at the time of his beloved father’s death? I worried about that the whole time I was reading this book, having faced similar dilemmas in writing about my own late husband’s lapses. This woman faced an avalanche of nasty secrets about a husband she had mostly adored, though his undiagnosed bipolar disease had begun to cause trouble in their relationship toward the end of his life, before he died from heart attack at 47. Her appealing voice keeps the reader on board through the big messy reveal and the New Age/paranormal experimentation that follows.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue