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A review by sydneydismukes
Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Patti Callahan
3.0
The book is clearly well-researched regarding important events in the lives of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. Having never read biographies about either, I loved reading about the true events that so heavily influenced some of their greatest works. The author connected us to the characters well and made them – especially Jack (C.S. Lewis) – appear more human and real.
When describing the various settings in the book, the author has a keen ability for making you wish you were there, too. While at times her seasonal imagery became repetitive, it was so descriptive and inviting. Her description of Oxford and the Kilns especially made me want to travel there ASAP. It gave me the same sense of coziness that I felt in many Narnia scenes.
The author does a great job of detailing the story of a woman who decides to take her life into her own hands. I am truly shocked to see the reviews of those saying they disliked the book because Joy seemed too selfish and should have tried to make her marriage with her first husband work. After the torment she endured, it was empowering to read how she prioritized her well-being, her work, and her children over the preservation of a marriage that had justifiable grounds for divorce. The book did a great job of highlighting the courage and determination Joy must have had during such a difficult time for women.
Where the book missed the mark...
I often struggle with books from the first-person POV because more often than not, it seems the author projects too much of his/her own personal thoughts, experiences, and personality onto the character. Many times, this book suffered from such a dissociative identity disorder. There were many times when I thought, ‘There is NO way Joy, a child prodigy who graduated high school at age 14 and broke the IQ test scale, would say something like that.’ Too often it seemed too like I was hearing the author’s voice, not Joy’s.
On the other hand, sometimes the dialogue felt too contrived and clunky. Our main characters often launch into monologues that are totally unlike any conversation ever produced by a human being. In many of these portions, I think the author was trying so hard to make the conversations appear deep and intellectual that the dialogues became unnatural, disjointed, and far more flowery than even those of a literary genius.
I almost did not finish the book because of the first chapter. Here the author introduces us to Joy, a wife thrown into hysterics (and rightfully so) after she cannot find her drunken husband who calls her in the midst of a PTSD episode. All within one singular page of text, Joy is characterized as a staunch atheist, then realizes she’s powerless in this situation, she decides to pray, and then “God came in…I felt fully known and loved. There was a solid sense that he was with me, had always been with me.” I feel like for such a revelation to occur and for us readers to recognize its weight, we needed a deeper understanding of Joy’s atheism and background first. It was just too many vital character points unloaded in one singular page of text.
Joy’s childlike desperation for requited love from Jack grated on my nerves. She came off as groveling, obsessive, and needy. I feel like the author could have done a better job of expressing this desire for Jack’s love without making Joy behave like I did in 7th grade.
Read this book if you want to learn more about the personal experiences that contributed to the development of two great literary geniuses and the works we’ve all come to know and love. Keep in mind, however, you will not hear as much God-talk as you probably anticipated. If there is any god present in this book, it is mostly Joy’s perception of Jack and her occasional nod to the “capital-G” God in times of despair.