Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis

Patti Callahan Henry, who also writes as Patti Callahan, gives voice to unexplored terrain in the past in her historical fiction. Published in 2018, Becoming Mrs. Lewis chronicles how Joy Davidman’s first marriage crumbles as her faith in the Christian God builds through the burgeoning friendship and love between her and C. S. Lewis. Deeply researched, Becoming Mrs. Lewis includes biographical and textual details from the intellectual milieu of the Inklings, a group of Oxford professors that included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Focusing on the intersections between marriage and Davidman’s authorial identity, Callahan creates a historical fiction that uses imagined correspondence and the writings of Lewis and Davidman to fill in the gaps in the facts of their relationship. With an undergraduate degree from Auburn University and a master’s degree from Georgia State, Callahan Henry, who worked as a pediatric nurse specialist, infuses Becoming Mrs. Lewis with accurate depictions of Davidman’s illnesses and the symptoms of and treatments for a cancer that proves fatal. The author of 17 books and the winner of the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for Becoming Mrs. Lewis, as well as numerous other awards, Callahan Henry later published