Now a USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestseller!
“Patti Callahan seems to have found the story she was born to tell in this tale of unlikely friendship turned true love between Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis, that tests the bounds of faith and radically alters both of their lives. Their connection comes to life in Callahan’s expert hands, revealing a connection so persuasive and affecting, we wonder if there’s another like it in history. Luminous and penetrating.” —Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife
In a most improbable friendship, she found love. In a world where women were silenced, she found her voice.
From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan comes an exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called “my whole world.” When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.
In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we meet a brilliant writer, a fiercely independent mother, and a passionate woman who changed the life of this respected author and inspired books that still enchant us and change us. Joy lived at a time when women weren’t meant to have a voice—and yet her love for Jack gave them both voices they didn’t know they had.
At once a fascinating historical novel and a glimpse into a writer’s life, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is above all a love story—a love of literature and ideas and a love between a husband and wife that, in the end, was not impossible at all.
“Patti Callahan Henry breathes wondrous fresh life into one of the greatest literary love stories of all time . . . The result is a deeply moving story about love and loss that is transformative and magical.” —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan’s Tale
“I was swept along, filled with hope, and entirely beguiled, not only by the life lived behind the veil of C. S. Lewis’s books but also by the woman who won his heart. A literary treasure from first page to last.” —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours
“Profoundly evocative, revealing an intimate view of a woman whose love and story had never been fully told . . . until now . . . Becoming Mrs. Lewis is a tour de force and the must-read of the season!” —Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of Beach House Reunion
“Patti Callahan somehow inhabits Davidman, taking her readers inside the writer’s hungry mind and heart. We keenly feel Davidman’s struggle to become her own person at a time (the 1950s) when women had few options . . . An astonishing work of biographical fiction.” —Lynn Cullen, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe
-
Sexual Content - 1/5
1/5
-
Violence - 0/5
0/5
-
Language - 0/5
0/5
-
Drugs and Alcohol - 1/5
1/5
Summary
From: Rebecca Maney
Book Title: Becoming Mrs. Lewis
Book Author: Patti Callahan
What do you like about this book:
"To me . . . you are star, water, air, fields, and forest. Everything."
A pulsating love story fraught with numerous obstacles and miraculous opportunities. Two, whose faith journey included many of the same questions with many of the same, and often competing, conclusions. It seems that Helen Joy Davidman and Clive Staples Lewis live on, not only in eternity, but in the hearts and minds of those who still love and appreciate their brilliance.
"This work of fiction was meant not only to explore her (Joy's) life, work, and love affair, but also to delve into the challenges she faced as a woman in her time . . . . ."
"I reread many of my favorites (of Lewis' works) with a new eye - seeing Joy's influence . . . how had I not seen it all along?"
Becoming Mrs. Lewis.
Your ratings of the level of sex, violence, language and drug/alcohol use on a scale of 1-5.
Sex:1
Violence:0
Language:0
Drug/Alcohol use:1