Douglas Gresham was the son of Joy Davidman Gresham, who married C. S. Lewis when Douglas was eleven years old. In 1973, ten years after Lewis’s death, Gresham wrote Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis, partly because he was asked to, partly to correct some misconceptions concerning C. S. Lewis. Yet Lenten Lands is his own biography, not Lewis’s.

The title of the book comes from a poem that Lewis had originally written for a friend, but then adapted to be put on Joy’s tombstone:

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.

Joy married fellow writer William Gresham in 1942. They had two sons, David and Douglas. But their marriage was troubled. They had been atheists, but searched other religions. Joy was drawn to the writings of C. S. Lewis as he told of his own journey from atheism to Christianity. She began writing to Lewis and eventually visited him in England.

When she returned home, she found that her husband was having an affair with the cousin she had left to keep house for her husband and sons while she was away. She tried to reconcile the marriage, but it was too late. Joy took her two sons and moved to England.

Joy and Lewis and Lewis’s brother, Warnie (Warren) enjoyed a strong, intellectual friendship. Joy and Lewis influenced each other’s writing. When Joy’s visa was not renewed in 1956, Lewis married her in a civil ceremony.

But before long, the couple grew to love each other as more than friends and sought a Christian marriage, difficult since the church of England did not condone Joy’s divorce. But they found someone who would perform the ceremony.

Joy developed bone cancer but went into remission. The cancer came back a few years later, and Joy died in 1960. C. S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed under a pseudonym. He had not been well himself, and died three years after Joy.

Douglas experienced all these things as a child: he was just eighteen when Lewis passed. He kept in touch with Warnie for some years, but Warnie’s grief and alcoholism were too much for Douglas to bear. He later regretted that he was not more attuned to Warnie’s grief and more of a help to him.

Douglas then tells of his various jobs, marriage, and children.

In his afterword, written in 2003, thirty years after the original publication of the book, he tells how he “committed [his] life to Christ and His service.” He had “always believed in God and in Jesus Christ; my problem was not one of belief, but one of arrogance and pride. I did not want to submit my life to any authority other than my own and it took me a long time to realize that I am simply not qualified to run it myself.” At that time he “was working more and more for the C. S. Lewis Literary Estate.” His Wikipedia page says he “hosted Focus on the Family Radio Theatre’s adaptations of his stepfather’s most famous works, and he was named co-producer for the series of theatrical films adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia” and is now a “stage and voice-over actor, biographer, film producer, and executive record producer.”

Not much is said of his brother, David, in the book. Douglas’s Wikipedia page says David returned to Judaism and was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

My heart went out to Douglas, having experienced so much loss at heartache at such a young age. His young adult years were somewhat tumultuous. A good talking to by the woman who would become his wife helped set him on the right course.

One of my favorite moments in the book was when Douglas actually met Jack. He had regarded him as “a cross between Sir Galahad and Merlin the Wise (p. 27), “on speaking terms with King Peter, with the Great Lion, Aslan himself” (p. 55). But Jack was “a slightly stooped, round-shouldered, balding gentleman whose full smiling mouth revealed long, prominent teeth, yellowed like those of some large rodent, by tobacco staining” (p. 55). “Well, so much for imagery,” Douglas concluded. But he also noticed “His florid and rather large face was lit as if from within with the warmth of his interest and his welcome. I never knew a man whose face was more expressive of the vitality of his person” (p. 55).

Another favorite part was when Douglas said “When I was home from school, the dinner table of The Kilns was the scene of my real education. Jack and Warnie were both brilliant at sustaining a conversation at any one of a dozen different levels and on almost any topic, and I learnt more sitting and conversing over meals than I ever learnt at school (p. 81). I imagine so!

I appreciated what was said about the interaction between Joy and a friend named Jean: “Though they did not always agree upon matters of religion, politics, or taste, they could argue for hours and finally simply agree to disagree, without the dissent having the slightest adverse effect on their friendship” (p. 92).

I became interested in this book after reading a fictional account of the relationship between Joy and Lewis, Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan (linked to my review). Since much of what the author wrote (like letters between the two) was made up, I wanted to read the account from one who was actually there at the time. It’s taken me a few years to get to it, but I am glad I finally did.