Joy Davidman and "The Great Divorce"

*

Joy Davidman (1915-1960), American poetess.

*

Civil marriage in 1956, religious in 1957 at Joy's bedside.

*

Shadowlands (1993): a beautiful film, with some liberties.

## Joy

Helen Joy Davidman was born on April 18, 1915, in New York, into a non-practicing Jewish family. A child prodigy, she published a collection of poems, *Letter to a Comrade*, which won an award in 1938, and was active in the Communist Party. She married writer William Lindsay Gresham, with whom she had two sons, David (1944) and Douglas (1945). In a personal crisis, she experienced a divine presence. She turned to Christianity, partly influenced by Lewis's books.

## The meeting

She wrote to Lewis in 1950. He appreciated her sharp mind and her outspokenness. They met in September 1952 in Oxford. Her marriage collapsed, and in 1953 she moved to London with her sons. Lewis supported her financially. He dedicated *A Grief Observed* to her, which she helped him write.

## Two marriages

On April 23, 1956, Lewis married her civilly in Oxford, to allow her to stay in England: a "marriage of convenience," as he called it. A few months later, Joy was diagnosed with bone cancer. Lewis realized he loved her. On March 21, 1957, a priest married them religiously at Joy's bedside in the hospital. Against all expectations, she recovered. They spent three happy years together at the Kilns. In 1958, they went on a late honeymoon trip to Wales and then to Ireland; in April 1960, they traveled to Greece, Lewis's only trip outside the British Isles. The cancer returned, and Joy died on July 13, 1960.

## After

Lewis raised the two boys. He wrote about his grief in *A Grief Observed* (*Apprendre la mort*), published in 1961 under the pseudonym of N.W. Clerk. He died three years later. Douglas Gresham became the guardian of his stepfather's legacy and co-producer of the Narnia films.

## The Shadowlands

Their story was first told on British television (BBC, 1985), then adapted for the stage by William Nicholson (1989). It finally became a film by Richard Attenborough, *Shadowlands* (1993), starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. The film is beautiful, but it takes liberties: only one son instead of two, a Lewis who is more timid and more withdrawn than he actually was, and the famous line "We read to know that we're not alone," which is from the screenwriter and not from Lewis.