First Edition Behind the Scenes of Becoming Mrs. Lewis🎙Podcast Series Episode One

Patti Callahan Henry
Oct 1, 2019
6 min read

Dearest Reader,

It’s finally that time! My original podcast series Episode One is out today!

Opening with Joy’s poetry, we first hear from her son, C. S. Lewis’s stepson, Douglas Gresham.

What About the Children Part I —with Douglas Gresham (before Joy's cancer).

The second episode is out next week:

What About the Children Part II —with Douglas Gresham (after Joy's cancer).

Please join me, as host for a seven-part original podcast, "Behind the Scenes of Becoming Mrs. Lewis" that explores in depth the improbable and beautiful love story between C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman.

While writing my novel Becoming Mrs. Lewis, I was inspired by numerous experts with scholarly, literary, and personal connections to Lewis and Davidman. Follow the journey as I talk with these significant influencers.

Thank you for listening!

With💕JOY, Patti Callahan

Newsletter: First Edition Oct 1, 2019 Episode One

Behind the Scenes of

Becoming Mrs. Lewis Podcast

Episode One

(One of a Seven-Part Series)

Listen & Subscribe

October 1, 2019

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN PART I —With Douglas Gresham (before Joy's cancer)

As Joy Davidman’s son and C.S. Lewis’s stepson, Douglas Gresham has a distinctly unique perspective on the love story that transpired between the two writers. Gresham shares with Patti his first years of knowing and meeting Lewis and explains how Joy and Lewis’s correspondence, romance, and marriage affected the entire Gresham family.

End Notes:

Douglas Gresham: (Joy Davidman’s son & C.S. Lewis’s stepson) Douglas Gresham Books: Lenten Lands and Jack's Life: The Story of C. S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis Books.

Joy Davidman's Poetry: A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis and other poems by

Joy Davidman and edited by Don W. King.

What About the Children Part I —with Douglas Gresham (before Joy's cancer).

EPISODE ONE

"I have two sons; two sons; two sons And terror in my head Small feet play safely on the lawn Small hearts are safe in bed,

Bird voices, fragile birdlike bones, Small hands that grasp my hands I bore my sons before the bomb Once I made plans." — Joy Davidman, A NAKED TREE

"When They Grow Up" page 249 – last two paragraphs

What About the Children Part II —with Douglas Gresham (after Joy's cancer).

EPISODE TWO

"For I have loved my own ghost all these years Till there is nothing to say yes to me: Till there is only vast and lightless nothing And in the heart of it not even I.

Oh, Love, let shadows flee; Oh live sun, living God, incarnate sword Of edged reality, let me be hurt, But let me live enough to die."

— Joy Davidman, A NAKED TREE

Last part of "Prayer Before Day Break."

Host and Author: The New York Times bestselling (Author) Patti Callahan Henry writing as Patti Callahan. Patti Callahan Website. (The Novel) Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. (The Podcast) Behind the Scenes of Becoming Mrs. Lewis Podcast Series.

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Episode List Becoming Mrs. Lewis Podcast

September 12, 2019

Introduction

TRAILER Teaser

* Episode 1 *

October 1, 2019

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN PART 1

— With Douglas Gresham (before Joy's cancer)

Episode 2

October 8, 2019

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN PART II

—With Douglas Gresham (after Joy's cancer)

When Douglas Gresham first learned of his mother’s cancer diagnosis, he very clearly heard the Lord say, “If you can’t make it, if you really can’t make it without your mother, I can fix it. All you have to do is ask.” Joy Davidman’s cancer later went miraculously into remission and gave her, her two children, and Lewis four more blissful years before fatally returning. In this episode, Douglas takes Patti through the years following his mother’s death and shares how her cancer diagnosis not only changed him but also changed the people whom he learned to call family.

Episode 3

October 15, 2019 LOSING FAITH

—Did Lewis lose his faith after Joy’s Death

With Dr. David Downing

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” C.S. Lewis writes in his raw and beautiful book, A Grief Observed, which chronicled his heartbreak after losing his wife, Joy Davidman, to cancer in 1960. Many have read this text and have interpreted that Lewis might have lost his Christian faith after losing Joy. Patti joins Dr. David and Crystal Downing in Wheaton College’s Marion E. Wade Center to discuss how this grief impacted Lewis, his future writing, and ultimately, his Christianity. She discusses the fascinating essay “A Grief Obscured” by Dr. David Downing.

Episode 4

October 22, 2019

WHY JOY?

—Why did Lewis choose Joy Davidman? Dr. Crystal Hurd and Dr. Crystal Downing

One of the questions that Patti asked while writing Becoming Mrs. Lewis was: Why Joy? Why was Joy Davidman the woman who finally ended Lewis’s long run as a bachelor? Patti speaks with Dr. Crystal Downing about how Dorothy Sayers introduced Lewis to an appreciation of brilliant, fiery women who bristled against cultural gender expectations. In another conversation, Dr. Crystal Hurd gives insight on how Lewis’s mother, Flora Lewis, also paved the way to Lewis finding his soul mate in the feisty Joy Davidman.

Episode 5

October 29, 2019

MUSE AND CO-AUTHOR

—Joy as Lewis’s muse and co-Author with Andrew Lazo

Till We Have Faces, a retelling of the ancient story of Cupid and Psyche, is often hailed as one of C.S. Lewis’s most mature and sophisticated novels. In fact, Lewis himself credits the title as being one of his best books. Patti speaks with scholar Andrew Lazo about how Till We Have Faces was heavily influenced—and arguably cowritten—by wife Joy Davidman and how Lewis’s other works show Davidman’s literary fingerprint.

Episode 6

November 5, 2019

THE LOST LOVE SONNETS

—Joy’s poetry to C.S. Lewis with Dr. Don W. King

Over 300 poems by Joy Davidman were never published during her lifetime and were, in fact, lost until quite recently. Dr. Don King has edited, analyzed, and published them in his book Yet One More Spring: A Critical Study of the Works of Joy Davidman. During their compelling conversation in this episode, Patti and Don discuss how Joy’s poetry reveals her desires, persistence, and even her pain. Together, they also ask: Did Joy give Lewis these poems? And how do these poems reflect their love story? Quite racy in parts, Joy’s desire and love for Lewis is palpable in these lost sonnets.

Episode 7

November 12, 2019

SUPRISED BY LOVE

—How love found C.S. Lewis with Andrew Lazo

A once-proclaimed “confirmed bachelor,” C.S. Lewis found himself contradicted when he fell in love with Joy Davidman. However, it is up for debate WHEN Lewis discovered this deep love for Joy. Scholar Andrew Lazo discusses how the letters and works of C.S. Lewis showcase his evolving self-awareness as he realized that he had helplessly fallen in love with the imperious Joy Davidman.

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Behind the Scenes Media PDF

Joy & Patti 📺 In the News

The Eric Metaxas Radio Show Interview Bestselling author Patti Callahan talks about her new novel BECOMING MRS. LEWIS and Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called “my whole world,”

Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Novel

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Coming in Paperback March 2020

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About the Author

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times best-selling author of fifteen novels, including the historical fiction, BECOMING MRS. LEWIS—The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. The author is also the host of the "Behind the Scenes of Becoming Mrs. Lewis Podcast Series" launching October 1, 2019.

THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, (Southern Contemporary Fiction) was released June 4, 2019 and available now. Her holiday Christmas novella THE PERFECT LOVE SONG will be published October 8, 2019, and available for pre-order now.

A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband.