‘Becoming Mrs. Lewis’ Reveals A Fiery Woman’s Courageous Story [REVIEW]

Discover how poet Joy Davidman and Narnia creator C.S. Lewis found love late in life in Patti Callahan’s Becoming Mrs. Lewis.

A wife caught in a loveless marriage. A beloved author living across the pond. Letters that cross in the mail forge a friendship based on faith, but kindle something more. Discover the marvelous true story of how C.S. Lewis helped his wife find her voice in Patti Callahan’s Becoming Mrs. Lewis.   

Thomas Nelson

Joy Davidson was a confirmed atheist until the night she had a revelation, found herself praying and felt God enter the fissures of her heart. But how could that be? Despite her questions, she was confident that what she experienced was real. She needed answers to her spiritual questions, and soon began writing letters to C.S. Lewis in hope of guidance. After all, he was a converted atheist and fellow writer. Surely he could understand her plight.

As they began corresponding to one another from opposite sides of the pond, a friendship and mutual respect was forged, and quite surprisingly, so was love. It wasn’t what either of them were looking for. After all, Joy was already married to another writer, but that union was crumbling under the strain of alcoholism and financial worry. Also, she was a Ukranian/Polish girl from the Bronx and he was an English don. What could the creator of Narnia see in her?

Yet trips between England and America, as well as all those years of lovely letters, bore an adventure that would transform both their lives, and would lead ultimately to love. No amount of poverty and heartbreak, or even the very threat of death, could destroy the bond they shared. Becoming Mrs. Lewis reveals how Joy not only became Lewis’s whole world, but how they transformed each other’s lives and liberated the unforgettable literary voices neither of them even knew they had.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis may very well be Patti Callahan’s crowning achievement. Writing with her trademark grace and heart, she reveals a powerful, moving true story of self discovery, transcendent faith and how a beautiful marriage was born in the ashes of another. From the opening scenes of this novel, when we meet Joy as a the daughter of a demanding father, we are swept up into a life that is both repressed and yet destined for something greater.

This is one of those stories that one finds himself wanting to linger over ponderously, our hearts breaking for a woman fighting for her place in the world during the 1950s, even as she fulfills her roles as wife and mother. It’s a story that is still all too relevant for our time, one that speaks of women’s inner strength even as they face societal mores and values, and demonstrates that even the most humble of women can rise up and push through the glass ceiling to work alongside the men who believe in them.

By turns devastating and empowering, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is a story to savor, one which will satisfy those curious about Lewis’s personal life and marriage, and which will garner Callahan many new fans as well. This is classic storytelling at its very best.

Patti Callahan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patti Callahan is the New York Times bestselling author of Where the River Runs and The Bookshop at Water’s End. A finalist in the Townsend Prize for Fiction, an Indie Next Pick, an OKRA pick, and a multiple nominee for the Southern Independent Booksellers Novel of the Year, Patti is published in nine languages.

Her articles and essays have appeared in Southern Living, PINK, Writer’s Digest, Birmingham Magazine, and more. Patti is also a frequent speaker for luncheons, book clubs and women’s groups.

A graduate of Auburn University and Georgia State University, Patti worked as a Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist until she began writing full time. Now the mother of three lives with her husband in both Mountain Brook, Alabama and Bluffton, South Carolina.

Readers are encouraged to visit her home on the Web at PattiCallahanHenry.com. They can also like her on Facebook; follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon, and BookBub; or subscribe to her channel on YouTube.

BECOMING MRS. LEWIS
By Patti Callahan
432 pgs. Thomas Nelson. $25.99

Purchase Becoming Mrs. Lewis at one of these fine online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, and Powell’s.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis is brought to you in association with TLC Book Tours.