Charlotte Observer Logo

C.S. Lewis and his beloved Joy | Charlotte Observer

×
  • E-edition
  • Customer Service
  • Advertise
  • Newsletters

    • News
    • Local
    • Crime
    • Databases
    • Education
    • Election
    • Politics
    • Nation/World
    • Special Reports
    • North Carolina
    • South Carolina
    • Corrections
    • Columnists
    • Retro Charlotte
    • Your Schools
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Sports
    • Carolina Panthers
    • Charlotte Hornets
    • That's Racin'
    • High Schools
    • College Sports
    • Charlotte Knights/MLB
    • Other Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Inside the Panthers
    • Inside the NBA
    • Prep Insiders
    • Scott Fowler
    • Tom Sorensen
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The North Carolina Influencer Series
    • RNC 2020
    • Business
    • Banking
    • Stocks Center
    • Top Workplaces
    • National Business
    • What's in Store
    • Development
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Living
    • Religion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Family
    • Home & Garden
    • CLT Style
    • Travel
    • Living Here Guide
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • I'll Bite
    • Kathleen Purvis
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Arts/Culture
    • Events
    • Movie News & Reviews
    • Restaurants
    • Music/Nightlife
    • Television
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Rewards
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Kevin Siers
    • Letters
    • Submit an Op-ed
    • Submit a Letter
    • Viewpoint
    • All Blogs & Columns
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • O-Pinion
    • You Write The Caption
    • Taylor Batten
    • Peter St. Onge
  • Celebrations
  • Obituaries
  • TV Listings

  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Virtual Career Fair
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
  • Place an ad
  • Mobile & Apps

  • MomsCharlotte
  • Carolina Bride Magazine
  • South Park Magazine

Reading Matters

Reading Matters

C.S. Lewis and his beloved Joy

By Dannye Romine Powell

dpowell@charlotteobserver.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

August 05, 2015 03:00 AM

If you’re a romantic, one who likes a bit of bitter stirred in the brew, pack this book for a late-summer vacation – “Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C.S. Lewis,” by Abigail Santamaria (Houghton, Mifflin, $28).

It was a long-ago winter when I saw the movie “Shadowlands” at the Manor Theater, the story of their love affair. A thick scarf warmed my neck. I wept so long and so hard, the scarf was soaked with tears by movie’s end.

C.S. Lewis was, of course, the British novelist (“The Screwtape Letters,” “The Chronicles of Narnia”), poet, critic, lay theologian (“Mere Christianity,” “The Problem of Pain”), close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, professor at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Quite an appealing guy but one who had never married.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Charlotte Observer

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Until... until... Enter Joy Davidman Gresham, a free-thinking poet, active in the New York literary and communist circles of the 1930s and 1940s, separated from a man with an erratic personality, a violent temper and a drinking problem. She wrote to Lewis for spiritural advice, fell in love with him long-distance (left her two young sons with the husband) and sailed to England to meet him.

Tolkien called it a “very strange marriage.” He felt Joy had taken advantage of Jack, as Lewis was called, and other friends held it against her that she had moved her young sons to England.

Lewis did not help things, according to the author, by “overpraising” Joy. He wrote of this marriage in his memoir, “A Grief Observed.”

Soon after their civil marriage, one arranged for convenience more than love, Joy fell and broke her leg. X-rays showed cancer throughout her body.

“They say a rival often turns a friend into a lover,” Lewis told a friend. In this case, his rival was Joy’s approaching death, courting her like a mad demon. After the diagnosis, they went ahead with a Christian wedding, and Jack was finally able to acknowledge his deep love of Joy.

Another biography as compelling as fiction.

  Comments  

Videos

Riding with Recruits: Shariah Gaddy

Watch the Gamecocks take on Kentucky at the Colonial Life Arena

View More Video

Trending Stories

NBA players urge Zion Williamson to shut it down after bizarre injury during UNC game

February 21, 2019 09:11 AM

John Harris warned his father about legal red flags involving Bladen operative

February 20, 2019 02:13 PM

American Airlines adds more flights to popular destinations after Spirit enters CLT

February 20, 2019 05:30 PM

‘The Shoe Game.’ On UNC’s blowout Duke win, Zion Williamson and busted sneakers.

February 20, 2019 11:10 PM

Mine shaft found under Charlotte house could be 150-year-old tunnel to gold

February 21, 2019 12:20 PM

things to do

Read Next

Review: Wiley Cash’s latest is his best, a model for how to turn fact into fiction

Reading Matters

Review: Wiley Cash’s latest is his best, a model for how to turn fact into fiction

By Dannye Romine Powell dpowell@charlotteobserver.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

September 24, 2017 10:56 AM

NYT bestselling author Wiley Cash’s new novel, ‘The Last Ballad,’ is his best

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Charlotte Observer

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE READING MATTERS

Dazzling line-up of writers for AAUW luncheon

Reading Matters

Dazzling line-up of writers for AAUW luncheon

March 28, 2017 06:00 AM
Hoping for sequel to Charlotte lawyer’s debut novel

Reading Matters

Hoping for sequel to Charlotte lawyer’s debut novel

March 24, 2017 06:00 AM
Novelist Sue Miller to read in Davidson

Reading Matters

Novelist Sue Miller to read in Davidson

March 23, 2017 06:00 AM
Edgar to talk on American Revolution in the Carolina Backcountry at Winthrop

Reading Matters

Edgar to talk on American Revolution in the Carolina Backcountry at Winthrop

March 21, 2017 06:00 AM
Conroy, Rash, Frazier: Lots of book news

Reading Matters

Conroy, Rash, Frazier: Lots of book news

March 20, 2017 09:15 AM
Grit was not my thing until I read David Joy’s 2nd novel

Reading Matters

Grit was not my thing until I read David Joy’s 2nd novel

March 09, 2017 06:00 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Charlotte Observer App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Photo Store
Advertising
  • Information
  • Place a Classified
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story