Joy Davidman is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. She is a round, dynamic character whose character growth parallels her conversion to Christianity. Ethnically Jewish, Joy is the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintain a middle-class existence in the Bronx. Her brother, Howie, doesn’t appear in the book in the flesh, having taken offense to Joy’s discussion of her upbringing and previous identity as a Communist. She describes herself as average-looking, the kind of woman men grow accustomed to. Discussing her own beauty with Renee, Joy declares she is not “Helen of Troy” (218), suggesting her face didn’t launch a thousand ships. Compared throughout her childhood to her cousin Renee, Joy often feels less beautiful than other women. Each time C. S. Lewis makes a joke about liking blondes, Joy takes offense, growing self-conscious about her looks. Having chronic illness throughout her life, Joy undergoes numerous treatments before being diagnosed in the late 1950s with cancer after marrying Lewis to maintain her residency in England.

Joy works as an author, having met her husband, Bill, at the MacDowell Writing Retreat. Bill’s and C. S. Lewis’s successes evade her, and her novel Weeping Bay becomes the target of critics’ consternation and Bill’s criticism.