A Wild and Precious Life: Edie Windsor's memoir is effervescent
16 Jan 2020

by Drew Rowsome - photos courtesy of the publisher.

A Wild and Precious Life is a roller coaster of a read, much like the actual life of Edie Windsor apparently was. The first two-thirds are a delight, with underpinnings of political outrage and torrid lesbian romance; the last third I had to read in private because of bouts of ugly crying, that weird emotional state where overwhelming empathetic sorrow mixes with proud joy. 

Windsor recounts her history in an almost breathless voice, a mix of matter of fact and surprise at her own nerve. Born in 1929 she grew up through the depression, discovered her lesbianism and the joys of sex early, but adhered to society's rules before deciding to break the rules. It was still a very closeted existence until, in the book's most telling detail, she and her partner Thea Spyer returned home from a vacation in Italy to find the Stonewall riots happening a few blocks over. From that moment she became a reluctant activist only to become a vocal and determined activist. And an effective one. When Thea died and the government did not recognize the couple's Toronto marriage because "spouse" was defined as a man and a woman, Windsor sued. The US Supreme Court agreed, and the odious Defense of Marriage Act was overturned.

The heart of A Wild and Precious Life is the love story between the two women. The telling details of struggling to come out, the fascinating subculture of underground lesbian bars and parties, and the summers spent consorting in the Hamptons, all lead to a love affair that was dramatic, intense and long lasting. Windsor offers advice on keeping the sex hot and the conflicts contained. Their love kept them together through Spyer's declining health due to multiple sclerosis. As co-author Joshua Lyon states in his introduction, this is not a dry recounting of court proceedings, it is an earthy saga of love.

Unfortunately Windsor died before the manuscript was completed, but Lyon had access to Windsor's copious files and to many friends who wanted to dish. Mostly his research adds veracity to Windsor's claims, but it also fills in some delicious holes. Windsor did not come from money and how she acquired it while also shattering glass ceilings at IBM is a cute sketchy story that Windsor herself would not tell. Or she might have eventually, she doesn't seem to be holding anything back. Her friends certainly confirm her joyful embrace of the pleasures of the flesh and her great skill in acquiring them.

Windsor's family is full of characters and the lusty lesbians she meets as she conquers New York are equally, if not more, entertaining. She and Thea lived a few floors above Larry Kramer, a detail she drops casually. The couple mixed socially with many gay men and when the AIDS plague hit, they were involved physically, financially, and in creating and running many of the advocacy and support organizations that were necessary. Windsor was one of the many who by coming out and speaking up, became pivotal in creating the rights we now enjoy. And I have no doubt that if she were still alive she would be, well into her 80s and her second marriage to the much younger Judith Kasen, still hard at work.

Of course the fact that Windsor and Spyer were financially well off, and both white though Windsor did experience anti-Semitism, makes this a quite different memoir than one that could be written by those who threw the bricks and then fought at Stonewall. But it was that privilege that provided the resources to fund committees and to argue a court case all the way to the Supreme Court. She was not an ally, she was a trailblazer. And an inspiration. She chose to begin the book with her signature under, in an enlarged font, the admonition "Don't postpone joy!" Wise words. And one passage in particular, written after one of Thea's more severe hospitalizations, is moving in its simplicity and honesty:

As I walked through our neighborhood, I realized the streets were eerily quiet, but every now and then, I'd pass a couple holding hands and feel a pang in my heart. I wanted to run up to each one and thell them o revel in that exact moment, the simple act of strolling together, skin against skin, because it wouldn't last. Whenever I saw a solitary figure walking toward another, I'd hope that their eyes would meet, that one would wink at the the other, and they'd sneak off into the shadows together for a fast fuck - an impromptu celebration, hell, just an acknowledgement, of the simple fact that they were alive and young.