Storyweb: Storytime For Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Richard Attenborough’s film Shadowlands. “The pain then is part of the happiness now. That’s the deal.” So says Joy Lewis to her husband, Jack, as they are enjoying their honeymoon in Herefordshire, England’s Golden Valley. Joy’s terminal cancer is in a brief remission, and Joy and Jack are reveling in their love and in their precious time together. Jack is better known to the world as C.S. Lewis, the author of a series of books on Christian theology as well as the famous Chronicles of Narnia children’s books. Joy’s line – about the inextricable intermingling of pain and happiness, sorrow and joy – comes near the end of Richard Attenborough’s film Shadowlands, which tells the unlikely love story between American poet Joy Davidman Gresham and the Oxford University professor C.S. Lewis. The screenplay was written by William Nicholson, based on his stage play of the same name. Nicholson’s work was influenced in part by Douglas Gresham’s book Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and