The first full biography of Joy Davidman brings her out from C. S. Lewis’s shadow to reveal a powerful writer and thinker.
Abigail Santamaria holds a MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, Jentel Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Abigail Santamaria’s Joy is . . . a relentlessly focused and
detailed biography of Joy Davidman . . . a serious and substantial
work [that] takes the reader far beyond the familiar romance of the
film and play Shadowlands, and the brilliance of Lewis’s meditation
on Davidman’s death, A Grief Observed . . . This groundbreaking
study contributes not just to established Lewis studies, but brings
to the foreground the cost of being a talented woman in a
patriarchal world. It makes its case for the possibility of
Christian faith in a compromised world with elegance and skill.
*Church Times*
Joy Davidman was manipulative, endearing, brilliant and obsessive -
and C. S. Lewis, one of the most influential and beloved spiritual
writers of the twentieth century, fell in love with all of it. A
complicated woman for our times, Davidman's search for meaning and
her final arrival at love will resonate deeply long after the
reader has closed Santamaria's masterful biography.
*Kate Burford, author of Native American Son: The Life and Sporting
Legend of Jim Thorpe*
Abigail Santamaria has written a luscious Narnia tale for
grown-ups, a literary biography that takes the shape of a quest
narrative as the brilliant, idealistic Joy Davidman Gresham, writer
and free spirit, adopts one cause after another until finally
setting her cap for her spiritual mentor, C. S. "Jack" Lewis.
Santamaria’s astonishing detective work reveals the surprising
truth behind Lewis’s description of the couple as "a sinful woman
married to a sinful man", even as she portrays their late-life love
affair as salvational to them both.
*Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller:
A New American Life*
A biography about the brilliant and brash New Yorker who captured
C. S. Lewis's heart was long overdue, so I'm thrilled to report
that Abigail Santamaria does not disappoint. Her highly readable
book should be the definitive biography of Joy Davidman for a long
time to come.
*Eric Metaxas, New York Times best-selling author of Miracles and
Bonhoeffer*
Joy is a delightful and fast-paced romp through a fascinating life.
I read most of this book in one sitting, genuinely curious about
whether this feisty, brilliant woman was going to get her happy
ending. A truly impressive, even enviable, debut for a writer and a
historian.
*Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the forthcoming
Madam: The Notorious Life and Times of Polly Adler*
A tour de force. Plumbing the depths of unpublished documents,
Santamaria reveals the vision and writing of a young woman whose
coming of age in the turbulent 1930s is both distinctive and
emblematic of her time.
*Susan Hertog, author of Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life*
This brilliantly researched biography has changed me for good.
Until I read this book I could never take Joy Davidman to my heart;
she now stands before me as real and believable as anyone I know.
Joy offers a wonderful account of an unforgettable woman and her
vibrant life; it is no wonder C.S. Lewis loved her so much.
*Walter Hooper, personal secretary to C. S. Lewis and editor of The
Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis*
Joy Davidman is best known as the wife of C. S. Lewis and many
people are familiar with the depiction of their marriage in the
book (and then film) Shadowlands, but we now have this 300 plus
page biography that finally does her justice. What impressed this
reviewer was Joy’s raw humanity that was redeemed by God. It is
plain (and she acknowledged it) that her conversion was utterly of
grace. Her unique personality and talents were precious to God and
used by God in His service. Every page of this biography shows the
value of the original papers, interviews and oral histories that
went into its composition. On reading this book, fans of C. S.
Lewis, if they are not already, will become fans of Joy Davidman as
well.
*New Life Christian Magazine*
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