60 pages • 2 hours read
Patti Callahan HenryA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Joy Davidman’s career as a writer was consistently overshadowed by her first husband, William Gresham, whose Nightmare Alley commands respect and fame as an example of noir fiction. After divorcing Bill, Joy married celebrated medievalist and early modernist C. S. Lewis. Davidman again languished outside the spotlight given to her more famous husband. Her work spans several decades and demonstrates mastery of formal elements, whether prose or poetry. These works include magazine articles, poems, and book-length works such as Weeping Bay and Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Her Letter to a Comrade, a collection of poems published in 1938, placed first in the Yale Younger Poet competition and was awarded the Russell Loines Memorial Award for poetry. In 2013, much of Davidman’s work was gifted to her son Douglas from one of Davidman’s friends in England (394). These papers are now housed at Wheaton College.
As a narrator, Joy mentions much of her own output, which remains largely unknown compared to the work of her two husbands. Despite her relative obscurity now, Becoming Mrs. Lewis demonstrates that Davidman remains her husbands’ peer. Davidman’s balancing of domestic duties and her authorial identity serve as one of the major concerns of the novel.
By Patti Callahan Henry
Books & Literature
View Collection
British Literature
View Collection
Christian Literature
View Collection
Friendship
View Collection
Marriage
View Collection
Mothers
View Collection
Popular Study Guides
View Collection
Religion & Spirituality
View Collection
Romance
View Collection
Valentine's Day Reads: The Theme of Love
View Collection