Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis

Gresham here recalls his 11 years at The Kilns, a ramshackle house near Oxford owned by the eminent novelist Clive Staples (Jack) Lewis. Son of American novelist W. L. Gresham ( Nightmare Alley ), seven-year-old Douglas went to England in 1952 and, with his recently divorced mother, Joy Davidman, moved in with Lewis, who married her in 1956, when she appeared to be dying of cancer. After her near-miraculous but temporary recovery, and despite Lewis's own increasingly painful osteoporosis, the two were happy together until her death four years later. Gresham writes lovingly of his relationship with them, and with Lewis's alcoholic brother Warnie. He also describes his own happy marriage and eventual settlement in Tasmania as a farmer and broadcaster. (August)