Book Review: Becoming Mrs. Lewis

Becoming Mrs. Lewis
Patti Callahan
Thomas Nelson, 2018

Many people know the name C. S. Lewis, but only a few called him Jack. When poet, novelist, wife, and mother Joy Gresham writes Lewis from New York seeking spiritual answers, she never expects the friendship that will develop through their correspondence. As Jack and Joy exchange letters over the years, they share the triumphs and woes of their writing lives and relationships, cultivating an intimate affection for each other unlike anything either has ever experienced.

When Joy visits England on doctor’s orders to take a break from her strained marriage and heal from her poor health, the two unlikely friends finally meet, and Joy struggles to keep herself from falling in love with the best man she’s ever known. Her trip is a dream come true, but eventually she is compelled to return to America where she is faced with difficult choices, a broken heart, and never-ending financial woes. Will she ever be able to make a home in the English country side she fell in love with? And more importantly, will anyone ever truly love her for herself the way her heavenly Father does? As she searches her heart for answers, Joy finds strength and encouragement in the companionship she finds in Jack, both on and off the page.

This post contains affiliate links. Read more about that here. Thanks to TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of Becoming Mrs. Lewis to review.

What a fantastic book. I mean really, the writing and the love story are both incredibly beautiful. I think most of us are probably familiar with the name C. S. Lewis from at least one of his many popular works, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Till We Have Faces being the ones I’ve read. But if you’re like me, it probably never occurred to you to wonder if there was a Mrs. Lewis and what, if any, role she played in his brilliant collection of works. It turns out that Joy Davidman, an accomplished writer in her own right, was a source of inspiration for Lewis and was instrumental in producing several of his works.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis is a fictionalized version of the story of Joy and Jack, based loosely on a collection of letters and sonnets written by Joy over the course of their relationship. Their love story is inspiring in the way it develops and the depth that it takes on in the end. It is equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking to read about Joy’s experiences and the way she relies on Jack to encourage her through it all. They both come into their relationship expecting to be nothing but intellectual acquaintances, and both are well past the age that most love stories like to focus on. They deal with real, raw circumstances and emotions and I was fascinated to watch their friendship evolve.

Get your copy of Becoming Mrs. Lewis here.

Another intriguing aspect of Becoming Mrs. Lewis is that a solid 80% of the characters in this book are writers of some variety. The reader is immersed in the world of producing content, trying to find someone willing to publish it, and living off an authors wages, which are not exactly bountiful in many seasons. As an aspiring author, I was inspired to work harder and write whether I feel like it or not. I don’t think I could ever be a poet like Joy Davidman or write theological masterpieces like C. S. Lewis, but I hope that I could have even a tenth of their passion for the written word someday.

I thoroughly enjoyed Becoming Mrs. Lewis for many reasons, and I will definitely be recommending it to family and friends. I’m also curious to read more of Patti Callahan’s work, to see if all her novels are as amazing as this one.