Lenten Lands ~ My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis by Douglas Gresham is my favorite book of the year. Douglas Gresham is one of Joy's two sons from her first marriage to William Gresham. He is a wonderful storyteller and the picture he paints with words of his childhood on through to his marriage with Merrie makes one feel as though you can close your eyes and follow along with all the details, as though you were one of the people who actually were friends of Joy and Jack (C.S. Lewis).
One of the first books that I read this year was Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. While I wouldn't tell anyone that they shouldn't read Patti's book, I will say that there is no comparison between it and Lenten Lands...mainly because Patti didn't live the life that Douglas did.
He speaks only briefly about his American father without going into a lot of detail about the divorce and the reasons for it. He doesn't go into detail about everything that his mother did when she was ill and went to England to meet with Jack. He really starts telling "his story" when he, his brother David and their mother Joy boarded the ship to take them to England to live.
He shares about their very first trip out to The Kilns, Jack and his brother Warnie's home. I loved how he talked about his disappointment when he first met Jack because of his ordinariness. He was sure that someone who wrote about such things as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and all the rest of the Narnia characters must surely be someone who would be suited in armor of some sort. Douglas was 7 at the time, I believe.
Reading Douglas' description of The Kilns, Jack, Warnie, the friends they came to know brought about such warmth to the book. He spoke of his mother's battle with cancer, how he and his brother were brought home from boarding school to be with her.
He gave the reader the opportunity to rejoice with the family when Joy's treatments put her cancer into remission and how she went about putting The Kilns in order as far as hiring people to take care of the maintenance, as well adding new paint, and drapes, etc. Once she had that accomplished, she took to the gardens outside.
Then came the day the boys were once again summoned to the director's office, but Douglas had already sensed what had happened. His mother had lost her battle with cancer.
He shares about Jack's compassion when it came to caring for the boys in the midst of his own grief. Also, there had been a point in Joy's fight with cancer that she was in so much pain that Jack could barely stand it, and he prayed and asked God to remove her pain and give it to him. Briefly Joy was relieved of some of her pain while at the same time, Jack began feeling the pain in his own body. He was diagnosed with osteoarthritis.
Jack did not do well after Joy's death and only lived a matter of a couple of years after her death.
The cover I have pictured is a bit different than my copy that I ordered from Thrift Books, but I feel relatively sure that it's the same inside. In my copy there is one section that's all pictures that I thoroughly enjoyed.
If you are familiar with the film Shadowlands, please be aware that the film was based off of Douglas' Lenten Lands.
I could go on and on...but then you wouldn't need to read the book! 😉
I highly recommend that you put the book on your To Be Read list.
