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The latest from Tumnus’s Bookshelf (NarniaFans.com) is a review of Douglas Gresham’s autobiography Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis (HarperOne, 1994). Below is a book summary. Click here for the review.
Life for Douglas Gresham was anything but typical. While the early days of his childhood were happy, they soon turned sour. His mother, Joy’s conversion to Christianity after reading the works of one CS Lewis, and his father converting to Dianetics, along with his fathers’ drinking and verbal and physical abuse of Joy, and Douglas led the family to drifting apart .While visiting Lewis in England William Gresham had an affair with Joy’s cousin. This was the lass raw and the marriage soon dissolved.
Joy took Douglas and his brother David to England where he got to meet CS Lewis, the man who ‘discovered’ the land of Narnia. Their passport soon expired and in order to keep them in England, Jack entered into a civil marriage with Joy. The two eventually fell in love.
However a dark cloud loomed over that love as Joy was diagnosed with cancer. During this time, Jack and Joy were officially married, and Jack became Douglas and David’s step-father. To Douglas he was the warmest and most loving step-father he could have. The cancer soon took Joy’s life and the two were forced to mourn her.
Douglas grew up and went to college. Then one day, on the evening that President JF K was shot, Douglas received word that Jack had died as well. He mourned for the loss of his step-father and for his old life.
Later Douglas married and had a family. They briefly settled down in Australia.