Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis

Part 1 begins with a quotation from C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, the sixth installment in the Chronicles of Narnia, describing how Eustace and Jill call on the lion Aslan as they escape their bullies.

The chapter begins with a quotation from Davidman’s “Sonnet I” about love and fire.

Joy considers her first marriage to Bill, remembering talking to him on the phone. Despondent, Bill expresses his despair as Joy urges him to come home. As the call disconnects, Joy fears he is with another woman or intoxicated. Racing through the house, she experiences despair, calling out to God. Remembering this moment as her conversion from atheism, she relates that Bill eventually came home, intoxicated.

Years later, Joy talks to Bill in their upstate NY farmhouse, talking about C. S. Lewis, examining a profile of the converted atheist and author written by Professor Chad Walsh. She wonders if Lewis might be able to help them, and Bill encourages her to write Lewis.

The chapter begins with a quotation from Davidman’s “Sonnet XLIV” that narrates the call to open a door.

Joy ponders how the Bible declares, “In the beginning was the word” (13), as she retrieves Lewis’s reply to her first letter. Walking back into the house, she encounters her sons, Davy and Douglas, horseplaying, and she offers to make them and Bill hot chocolate. Bill suggests she pick up some of the clutter around the house. Resentful as she looks at the nearly empty refrigerator, Joy realizes she will have to buy groceries and lose more time writing. She tells him about Lewis responding, and he asks to read it after her.

The chapter ends by quoting the beginning and the end of the letter, with Lewis addressing Bill and Joy together and commenting on the length of their letter.

Chapter 3 opens with a quotation from Davidman’s “Prayer Before Daybreak,” describing the love of figurative spirits and the dead.

Joy and Bill talk as he smokes a cigarette in the house, and Joy tells him not to smoke in the house. He has taken a phone call from her agent about an upcoming author photo. She returns to writing, irritated that Bill spoke to her agent. Rather than concentrating on poetry, Joy begins her response to Lewis.

Lewis had written about Joy’s journey toward faith, casting it as a hunt by God and asking to know more about her past. She writes a four-page response—unpacking her past and mentioning her many “masks,” the first of which is her Jewish identity. As she closes the envelope, Joy expresses a desire for Lewis to know her and see her.  

Chapter 4 begins with a quotation from Davidman’s poem “Selva Oscura,” tying wisdom to silence.

Joy and Bill have packed their car, and they head to Chad Walsh’s home in Vermont for summer vacation. A friend of Lewis, Walsh authored the profile of him in The Atlantic, which Joy had perused before writing Lewis years before. Bill asks if Joy wants to vacation with Walsh because of Lewis, which she denies. In a letter to Lewis, Joy describes her balance of writing and motherhood as like the dark wood Dante describes at the beginning of The Divine Comedy. He responds with understanding, confirming his time in the dark wood in his life and work and agrees that nature heals. Thinking about their frequent correspondence, Joy remembers her enjoyment in sharing the Narnia books with her sons.

Lewis writes and confirms the allusions in his writing to medieval texts and traditions. Joy responds that Arthuriana looms large in his work, which Lewis validates. He adds that Plato and mythology inform his writing.

Joy details the worsening fights with Bill and describes his pointing a gun he thought unloaded at the ceiling. Pulling the trigger, Bill realizes the gun was loaded, and Joy quickly checks on the boys asleep upstairs. Having locked herself in the guest room, where the bullet had entered the floor, she sleeps alone.

Lewis writes about his brother Warnie, who reads Joy’s letters and will write to her soon. In reply, Joy details her estrangement from her brother that occurred after she wrote an autobiographical piece about her family and her early communist leanings. In his response, Lewis confirms that while writing can produce pain, it is necessary.

In Vermont, Joy talks to Eva, Chad Walsh’s wife. Joy expresses her frustration at balancing writing and motherhood, and Eva attempts to encourage her.

Lewis writes about his most depressing moment—the death of his mother and tells Joy to call him Jack. In reply, Joy describes seeing a young woman die by suicide as she sat at her desk at Hunter College in New York. Pleased at his familiar gesture, Joy asks Jack to call her Joy instead of Mrs. Gresham.

Walking with Eva, Joy tells her about an old dream she has of a place in the forest called “Fairyland,” which is a paradise and confesses that she has told Jack about Fairyland. Jack writes to Joy, telling her to be patient, and Joy accepts his guidance.

Jack discusses one of her essays in a letter, encouraging her to write, and she responds with comments on The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, works central to her conversion.

Later, Jack confirms Joy’s suspicions about Tolkien’s influence. Joy details her reading of The Hobbit and her erstwhile embarrassment in enjoying mythology. Jack writes that he’s happy to write to someone with similar tastes and reading history, noting his excitement for her next letter.

Beginning with a line from Davidman’s “Sonnet III” about love and the light of the moon, Chapter 5 opens with Joy alone in bed in the morning. Bill has gotten up already, and she can hear her children. Douglas calls her to breakfast. Quotations follow from a pair of letters, with Jack thanking Joy for sending a ham. He expresses gratitude because England still copes with food rationing. In her quoted excerpt, Joy describes the abundance of her garden, acknowledging that she can’t bear his eating the same thing every day.

Joy describes her talks with the Walshes and Bill, and the excitement at discussing these intellectual topics reminds her of the writer’s colony where she met Bill.

Following her description, two quotations from their letters follow. In the first, Jack expresses sympathy for her trouble writing about the Ten Commandments, and her response references her difficulty dealing with theology in her writing.

That evening, Eva asks about Joy’s novel Weeping Bay. Bill criticizes the novel, and Joy admits that the critical response has been harsh but that she wrote what she wanted to write. Joy begins to talk about fiction, the Gospels, and Jack’s writing, and Bill appears upset. Putting out his cigarette, Bill goes to bed.

A pair of quotations from their letters follow. Jack discusses his planned journey to Ireland, and in her response, Joy expresses a wish to see Ireland. She writes that the British Isles have influenced him, just as New York and six months in Hollywood have shaped her. She asks for a photo from Ireland before she signs off with a familiar goodbye.

Chad and Joy discuss her relationship and view of Jack. He tells her to visit England, and she tells him that planning such trips and breaks is easier for men than women. As Bill sleeps that night, Joy quietly rises and begins to compose a poem.

The chapter begins with a quotation from her poem, “For Davy Who Wants to Know About Astronomy.”

Joy describes the moon goddess, telling Davy she wrote a poem about Selene. She describes Davy’s fascination with astronomy. Describing the time she spends with her children, Joy confesses that her desire to visit England grows as she reads to them.

Thinking about their two-year correspondence, Joy acknowledges her yearning for his letters. Two letter excerpts follow. In the first, Jack writes about waiting for spring while telling her that Elizabeth has become queen. In her reply, Joy describes the first signs of spring, her return to writing poetry, and her sympathy for young Elizabeth.

Under the weather, Joy tries to write a short story in January, and she receives another letter from Jack. When Bill asks her about dinner, Joy demurs, reading the letter. In Jack’s letter excerpts, he links the search for identity to the relinquishment of cravings and longings. In Joy’s response, she describes her parents’ criticism and her mother’s comparison of Joy to her cousin Renee while acknowledging Bill’s disappointment in her as a wife.

As Joy becomes more ill, her doctor demands that she get rest or she will worsen and die. In more letter excerpts, Jack expresses sympathy over Bill’s bad behavior, describing divorce as a necessary step sometimes. He asks if she can visit England. Joy acknowledges how difficult her situation remains, and she expresses excitement at the possibility of coming to England.

As the days progress and her illness persists, Bill tells her one night that her fever has broken, and she can smell another woman on him. He admits his affair, explaining that he must be fulfilled while she’s sick.

In an excerpt from Jack’s letter, he writes about how God communicates to people through pain. Joy’s response expresses her frustration that she can’t hear God over her pain as she describes Bill’s newest dalliance.

As Bill tells her to get better, Joy realizes the marriage will kill her. 

Chapter 7 opens with a quotation from Davidman’s “Sonnet II” describing the distance between two people.

Sitting at her typewriter, Joy considers her unfinished domestic chores and the issues with divorcing Bill, such as lack of funds. Her cousin Renee arrives with her children, having escaped her abusive husband.

In a letter excerpt, Jack describes free will, the choice to be bad or good, and the necessity of free will in love. Joy’s response mentions her desire to reason with God about the freedom to be bad.

Joy admits she and Renee had both married men with alcoholism. Excited to see her cousin, they eat together. In excerpts from letters, Jack describes his pleasure at reading Joy’s stories about Renee and the farm and encourages Joy to keep writing them. In her response, Joy confesses she doesn’t think she can stop sharing.

Joy and Renee discuss Bill and Renee’s husband Claude and their differences. In excerpts from letters, Joy questions why the terrible events of childhood persist throughout life, and she reinforces the power of surrendering. In Jack’s letter, he confirms that surrendering to God represents the solitary choice to live one’s life.

They eat dinner, and Renee and Joy again discuss their husbands, with Joy expressing frustration at trying to balance her writing and domestic duties. Renee claims that Joy has her writing, but Renee’s life feels empty.

The chapter opens with a quotation from Davidman’s “Sapphics,” describing the speaker singing another’s song.

After weeks pass, Joy notices how well Renee and her children fit into the household. Renee starts doing much of the domestic work in the house, and Joy writes and sleeps in.

In excerpts from their letters, Joy asks about doing one’s duty when lacking willpower. In his response, Jack describes how a mother and daughter lived with him and his brother Warnie for 24 years. He describes the bad end and the pain of obligation. In her letter excerpt, Joy remarks that Bill has become a problem for her, and she notes Jack’s kindness.

Renee asks Joy if she’s considered divorce, as she confesses she’s divorcing Claude. She encourages Joy to go to England, promising that they will manage. In excerpts from their letters, Jack asks for updates on Renee’s visit. He tells her about being rejected for a professorship at Oxford and a recent lecture he gave about children’s literature. In the quotation from her response, Joy describes their routine, Renee’s new role in the house, and Joy’s plan to visit England.

Joy talks to Bill and Renee about her plan, including a visit to London to stay with a friend. They support her decision, noting how important her health remains to them.

In excerpts from their letters, Jack expresses excitement at their prospective meeting. In her response, Joy relates her plans.

Saddened that she must leave, Joy says goodbye to her children, and Bill acknowledges the unavoidable pain of her departure. She boards the ocean liner heading for England.