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

Based on the historical figure, C. S. Lewis, known as Jack throughout the novel, functions as Joy’s friend and later love interest, marrying her in a religious ceremony in the late 1950s after she is diagnosed with cancer. Before he becomes her husband and love interest, he serves as her mentor, answering her questions about faith and conversion. An author and Christian apologist, Lewis describes his conversion at age 32 from atheism to Christianity in various books, from The Screwtape Letters to The Great Divorce. The acclaimed author of The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis belongs to an informal group of academics and authors centered around Oxford known as the Inklings. A professor at Oxford, he eventually takes a job at Cambridge, where he avoids the slights inflicted upon him at Oxford. A devoted brother, Lewis takes care of his brother, Warnie. Joy and Lewis live together in his family home, the Kilns, and later honeymoon in Ireland. Deeply devoted to his faith, he maintains a chaste friendship with Joy before he realizes that he loves her as a friend and a wife. As he contemplates her mortality, Jack realizes “he should have been loving you and saying it every day for as long as I’ve known” (357). This realization cements him as a dynamic character.

Davy and Douglas appear shocked when they meet him because he doesn’t look like Aslan, the lion who represents the Christian God in the Narnia books. Joy describes him to Belle as a Christian who avoids prudishness; she tells Belle he’s “seventeen years older than” Joy and “smokes sixty cigarettes a day and then his pipe in between” (210). His beliefs about sex prove controversial enough that American conservative audiences find them shocking.

Joy’s first husband, Bill, appears debonair and is described as handsome. From Baltimore, he has the vestiges of a Southern accent. Functioning as an antagonist, he opposes Joy’s quest to write, behaves badly toward her, commits numerous infidelities, and eventually leaves her for her cousin Renee. Desiring a wife who performs traditional duties and ignores his infidelities, Bill imagines himself as Rhett Butler, according to Joy. Joy’s doctor calls Bill a “psychopath,” and Joy alleges, “Bill uses his authority to soothe his anxiety” (218). Possessing a terrible temper, Bill experiences symptoms of alcohol addiction, becoming sober and then relapsing. Moving with Joy from New York City to upstate New York, he attempts to recreate the success of Nightmare Alley before taking a job in PR and writing nonfiction about the carnival. After Renee leaves him in Part 3, he pivots, attempting to reconcile with Joy. Describing his personality as “dynamic,” Bill tries to explain away his capriciousness toward Joy and Renee. As Joy prepares to leave, Bill reverts to adolescence, collapsing into fits after he binges.

Bill often clashes with Joy throughout the novel—first by critiquing her writing and then by slowly trying to wear down her strength. Joy claims that Bill “wants someone different from me, as if marriage would turn me into a compliant doll” (56). Bill marries with a specific pattern, remarrying as soon as he divorces—he repeats this pattern with Joy, whom he meets at the MacDowell Writing Retreat and later with Renee.

C. S. Lewis’s brother, who, like Bill, experiences symptoms of alcohol addiction. As opposed to Bill, Warnie maintains his warmth and kindness toward his brother and Joy, welcoming her with open arms to the home he shares with Jack. Another foil for Bill, Warnie represents a vulnerability that Bill lacks. Openly emotional, he embraces Joy, telling her, “I love Joy as a sister, and now we will make it official” (371). Warnie disagrees with his brother giving Mrs. Moore and her daughter Maureen shelter in the Kilns for 20 years, but he embraces Joy and her sons from the beginning. Jack’s sidekick, Warnie, begins corresponding with Joy soon after his brother, Jack. After he meets Joy, Warnie, himself a writer, suggests they collaborate on a novel depicting King Louis XVI’s wife, which they call their Cinderella story. A bachelor like his brother, Warnie and Jack share a close bond despite Warnie’s alcohol addiction. Joy finds Warnie’s childhood drawings of creatures like those from Narnia, suggesting the influence Warnie has over his brother’s creation. He and Jack vacation together in Ireland every year, and their bond is like that between Joy’s sons, Davy and Douglas.

Davy and Douglas are Joy’s sons with Bill, who move with her in England after she leaves Bill. After her death, Jack continues to raise them till his death in 1963. Cared for by Lewis, who supports their education in England before he marries Joy, Davy and Douglas exhibit their mother’s and stepfather’s ardor for faith. Joy notes in the Epilogue that her “heartbroken sons” explored religion—“Davy in the Jewish traditions and Douglas in Christ” (391). Douglas finds work producing movie adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia. He discovers Joy’s abandoned papers after her death. Raised in England, Joy mentions their slight English accents. Like Jack and Warnie, they share a bond in the novel. Davy is the more inquisitive and obsessed with astronomy, which Joy records in one of her poems. He wears glasses and is an inch shorter than his brother. Davy often speaks to his mother about emotional topics.

Florence is the widow of Charles Williams, “a poet, theologian, author, and an Inkling with Jack and J.R.R. Tolkien” (71). Nicknamed Michal by her husband, she takes to Joy right away, introducing her to “a group of science fiction writers who gathered off Fleet Street” (71). Joy characterizes them as “fast friends” and finds out that Bill “had written a foreword for one of her late husband’s books” (71). As Joy gets to know her, she finds out that Michal struggles with her husband’s will, pursuing his manuscripts years after his death because he gave them to other women (138). Joy bonds with her over this common pain, noting she had felt the “same betrayal—the knowledge that your man had been with and given something of value to other women” (138).

Belle is Joy’s college roommate at Hunter College. Joy describes her as her “best friend, roommate at Hunter, and confidante through the years” (207). Calling her beautiful, Joy creates a contrast between Belle and herself, calling herself a “roommate with the sickly pale complexion” (207). Meeting her in New York City after Joy returns from England, Joy and Belle discuss their writing, having both gone to Columbia for master’s degrees. Joy claims they both had expectations of a life “with literary honors, parties, and publications” (208). Almost Joy’s sidekick, Belle “has always been right there with” (211) Joy, through Joy’s affiliation with the Communist Party and during Joy’s embarrassing moments. While Belle wants Joy to consider staying with Bill to save their family, she continues to support her friend.

One of Bill’s and Joy’s friends, Phyl lives in London and offers Joy a place to live during her first trip to England. Joy tells Renee that Phyl “stayed with us last winter during a crisis in her life” (61), and Phyl returns the favor whenever needed. Joy implies that Phyl is attractive as she watches Phyl’s “long eyelashes sweeping up and down” (72) before they meet Jack and Warnie; watching Phyl, Joy remembers accusing Bill of “seducing” her the year before in New York. Phyl seems charming, and her participation in Joy’s first lunch with Jack results in a smooth and fluid meeting. At Oxford, Joy notices Phyl’s “blue eyes squinting against the sun” (75), but other physical details are missing in Joy’s description of her.

One of the Inklings and a professor at Oxford, Tolkien holds professorships first as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and then the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature before retiring in the 1950s. As a foil to C. S. Lewis, Tolkien has traditional expectations for women, appearing shocked to meet Joy in a pub. He interrogates her with questions about his work and ideas, responding and reacting in dismissive ways. Tolkien achieves the success at Oxford that eludes Lewis, and Tolkien’s fiction books have been treated as more serious and complex by critics than Lewis’ fiction.

Renee is Joy’s cousin and Joy’s mother’s favorite. Renee becomes the standard for manners and beauty to which Joy is compared. Like Joy, Renee married a man who misused alcohol, but Claude, Renee’s ex-husband, routinely physically abused her. She escapes him, moving from Mobile, Alabama, to the farmhouse in upstate New York. Both Joy and Bill agree that Renee cares more for traditional domestic chores than Joy. She falls in love with Bill and eventually becomes his third wife. Moving to Miami to escape Joy’s and Bill’s fights, Renee is hurt deeply by Bill’s attempt to reconcile with Joy. Joy implies that Renee doesn’t think as deeply, describing her face as “a blank slate” when Joy explains Bill’s behavioral patterns.