☮Karen's Reviews > Becoming Mrs. Lewis

"We are often woefully negligent of the women next to the men we admire, and Joy Davidman is one of those women."
Patti Callahan in A Note From the Author, Becoming Mrs. Lewis

I knew nothing about poet and novelist Joy Davidman before, and very little about C.S. Lewis other than he has written many books that I've never had the slightest interest in. The author, however, has been a fan for years of them both and strove to make Joy's extraordinary accomplishments known. Callahan has given us the story of how a married Jewish woman and mother of two became a Christian with the courage to leave her husband and America, to meet her penpal and spiritual advisor Mr. Lewis, then a professor at Oxford, and eventually move to England to work side by side with him as an intellectual equal. She was his co-writer, his editor, his muse, and his love, joy, and grief. She received very little recognition.

Callahan's prose had to be brilliant to convey that of Joy's, and she met that challenge. I found the book to be lovely. Only a few times did I think it verged on being preachy (both of the main characters were quite devout, but not boring), and it came pretty darn close to being a romance book, but in the end I'd simply say it was heartbreakingly romantic. Their conversations were thought provoking and intellectually stimulating, never sappy. I intend to read something by each of them.