Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis
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The first full biography of Joy Davidman brings her out from C. S. Lewis’ shadow, where she has long been hidden, to reveal a powerful writer and thinker.
Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis’ memoir A Grief Observed. Now, through extraordinary new documents as well as years of research and interviews, Abigail Santamaria brings Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis to the page in the fullness and depth she deserves.
A poet and radical, Davidman was a frequent contributor to the communist vehicle New Masses and an active member of New York literary circles in the 1930s and ’40s. Born Jewish in the Bronx, she was an atheist, then a practitioner of Dianetics; she converted to Christianity after experiencing a moment of transcendent grace. A mother, a novelist, a vibrant and difficult and intelligent woman, she set off for England in 1952, determined to captivate the man whose work had changed her life.
Davidman became the intellectual and spiritual partner Lewis never expected but cherished. She helped him refine his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and to write his novel Till We Have Faces. Their relationship—begun when Joy wrote to Lewis as a religious guide—grew from a dialogue about faith, writing, and poetry into a deep friendship and a timeless love story.
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Abigail Santamaria holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, Jentel Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Joy is her first book.
Bernadette Dunne has been honored to narrate the work of some of the finest fiction and nonfiction writers of our time, including Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sandra Day O'Connor. The winner of more than a dozen Earphones Awards and a three-time Audie Award nominee, she has voiced countless bestsellers, including Memoirs of a Geisha, The Devil Wears Prada, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She studied at The Royal National Theater and lives in New York.
