In the beginning of this journey, it was Joy’s early biographies I turned to, most notably And God Came In by Lyle Dorsett, Through the Shadowlands by Brian Sibley, Jack’s Life by Douglas Gresham, Lenten Lands by Douglas Gresham, and the biography Joy by Abigail Santamaria. The extensive critical work, articles, and edited collections by Don W. King, professor at Montreat College, brought me even closer to her life and work. Yet it was Joy’s own writings, poems, and letters that drew me nearer to her heart.
During the writing of this novel, I traveled to Wheaton College’s Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois, where most of Joy’s and Lewis’s papers are housed and carefully curated, along with a research collection of materials by and about six more renowned British authors. Joy’s （as of now） unpublished letters, poems, and personal papers were immaculately filed in numerous boxes—a treasure trove for a novelist. Alone in the Wade Center reading room, surrounded by Joy’s handwriting, her letters, her poems, her divorce decree and passport, Joy came alive for me.
This novel is written in a key of empathy for this extraordinary woman. I can only hope that I’ve captured some of her lionhearted courage, conflicted and sometimes disparaged choices, as well as her abiding love for the man we know as C. S. Lewis, but whom she knew as mentor, best friend, and in the end her lover and husband. The man she knew as Jack.
I could not have come to know her as I have （and it is only an imagining of the heart, not a scholarly attempt to dissect her work or her actions） without the insightful, dedicated work of so many others. In addition to the works mentioned above, I found the following texts to be useful in my own research and strongly recommend them for further study and insight.
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
Armstrong, Chris R. Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians: Finding Authentic Faith in a Forgotten Age with C. S. Lewis. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2016.
Bramlett, Perry C. Touring C. S. Lewis’ Ireland and England. Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 1998.
Davidman, Joy. “The Longest Way Round.” In These Found the Way: Thirteen Converts to Protestant Christianity, edited by David Wesley Soper. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951.
Davidman, Joy. A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems. Edited by Don W. King. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2015.
Davidman, Joy. Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Foreword by C. S. Lewis. Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1954.
Davidman, Joy. Weeping Bay. New York: MacMillan, 1950.
Dorsett, Lyle W. And God Came In: The Extraordinary Story of Joy Davidman. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009.
Gresham, Douglas H. Jack’s Life: The Life Story of C. S. Lewis. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2005.
Gresham, Douglas H. Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. New York: Macmillan, 1988.
Gilbert, Douglas, and Clyde S. Kilby. C. S. Lewis: Images of His World. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005.
Hooper, Walter, ed. The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis. Vol. 3, Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Hooper, Walter, ed. C. S. Lewis on Stories and Other Essays on Literature. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1982.
Hooper, Walter. Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis. New York: Macmillan, 1982.
King, Don W. “Fire and Ice: C. S. Lewis and the Love Poetry of Joy Davidman and Ruth Pitter.” VII: An Anglican-American Literary Review 22 （2005）： 66–88.
King, Don W. “A Naked Tree: The Love Sonnets of Joy Davidman to C. S. Lewis,” VII: An Anglican-American Literary Review 29 （2012）： 79–102.
King, Don W., ed. Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009.
King, Don W. Yet One More Spring: A Critical Study of Joy Davidman. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2015.
（Anything by C. S. Lewis, but most importantly for this novel）
Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960. First published 1960 by Geoffrey Bles.
Lewis, C. S. A Grief Observed. New York: HarperOne, 2015. First published 1961 by Faber and Faber.
Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce. New York: HarperOne, 2015. First published 1946 by Geoffrey Bles.
Lewis, C. S. The Horse and His Boy. The Chronicles of Narnia. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1954.
Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. The Chronicles of Narnia. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1956.
Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Chronicles of Narnia. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950.
Lewis, C. S. The Magician’s Nephew. The Chronicles of Narnia. London: The Bodley Head, 1955.