Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963
Page 20
No word, no visits, from George. Idly, I wonder where he’ll go this summer. I have no trips, no lectures, scheduled. I am too heavy to ride on the flat, and the hunt season doesn’t open until November. I wish I could count on being in Ireland then. I don’t want much. Just a place on the rail at Leopardstown, a couple of bob down. Is that asking too much of life? Is it absolutely certain that one can’t go home again? […]
Ah, well.
Jim
What did you think of the Dodgers’ victory skein under Walt?2
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
Sunday a.m. [November] 1955
Dear Fr Egan,
I’ve been contemplating your invitation3 hungrily but must not accept, I fear. Betty is with child, and it could come around Thanksgiving; probably not; but it could. I’m sorry I can’t make it. I have nothing else (but Beardsley) to satisfy my yearnings for the higher things. Very dull here.
Last night, however, Mary Humphrey threw a big love feast (see Methodism, for my usage here). Fr Casey present with tape of Fr Hugo’s sermon. Many laypeople. The sermon holds up very well, I thought. […]
Accent (fall) not here yet.4 Commonweal soon, I understand;5 problem of story’s length, so (say I) why not make it an all-JF number? Introduction to my work by you; television ads from the hierarchy; reproductions of MS pages; and a garland of quotations from People Who Knew Me, headed by GGG.6 […] All for now.
Jim
Think of me if you have Bridgeman’s7 on Thanksgiving.
Hugh Wahl Powers was born on November 25, 1955.
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
November 30, 1955
Dear Fr Egan,
Baby born on Friday,8 and so I’m glad I didn’t go to Beardsley. We call him Hugh Wahl Powers. I held out for Harvey to the very end, put up with remarks about rabbits,9 etc., but perhaps it’s just as well. You never know how anyone’s going to turn out, though I guess calling him Harvey would’ve paved the way for him.
I read your lines on how much better I am with each child with a jaundiced eye. Let’s just say—from what I’ve seen so far—I’m not long for this world, to say nothing of the literary world. With each succeeding child, I see better the wisdom of H. Sylvester, a prophet of yesteryear, who, however, committed hari-kari.10 You know he remarried—a woman with three or four kids of her own. It’s hard not to get confused. Yesterday, enjoying an hour at Gopher Wrecking,11 it occurred to me I really ought to speak to someone there about work.
I’m glad you liked “Blue Island,”12 since good news hasn’t come my way lately—hardly any response to “A Losing Game”13—and your approval has always been elusive when it comes to my work. I know you admire the man of family, but what of the artist, I sometimes think.
Latest on the local front is that the Bp14 refused to consecrate one of Don’s chalices—made for one of the Hovda-Fehrenbacher15 school. Too big,* the Bp said. Well, keep it to yourself. I gather Fr F. shouldn’t have told Don at all what happened, and came around later to undo what he’d said, to get Don to believe it in no way reflected upon him and his work. Of course Don is a great one for seeing the worst side in a matter like this. I counsel caution. Time, I say, cures all, and besides he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Few of us have.
All for now. I’m interested in a few days around Christmas at Beardsley, and will let you know later how matters shape up here.
Speed.
(I sign my name as it is in religion.)
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
January 10, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I went to St Paul last Saturday for a party at Gene McCarthy’s house, at his invitation via long distance; down on train, back with Hyneses. Pretty good evening, lots of politicos, including the governor,16 whom I missed on purpose, and Miles Lord, the attorney general, an ex–Golden Glover, Gene said, who is having sleepless nights (Miles, I mean) over the bingo issue.17 Someone said if there’s ever an American pope, he’ll take the name Bingo I. Hey, what’s wrong with bingo? May it not be laudable and meritorious? […]
Yes, I have the D’Arcy and would like to keep it a while. I’m reading it now and would like to trap Hump into reading it (he has Black Popes18 now). I don’t think Don has ever entered the Church intellectually—and now the word is going around that he’s left it because the Bp refused to consecrate that chalice (this rumor from St John’s, some monk or other), due no doubt to Don’s big mouth somewhere along the line. Then I think of what Joyce said, that he’d preserve his life as an artist through silence, exile, and cunning—and Don, in a place quite as stuffy as Ireland in 1900, unable to practice any of these things. Well, he’s wide open. Emerson wants me to make a move, as Don’s friend. But I am doing nothing. I have to see the whites of their eyes, and maybe even then I won’t shoot. […]
Jim
17
Four children now, Jack. And this year, the man said, bock beer is not available in this area
February 29, 1956–August 24, 1956
Standing: Mary and Katherine; sitting: Hugh, Betty, Jim, and Boz
Jim’s short-story collection, The Presence of Grace, was published by Doubleday in March 1956.
HARVEY EGAN
FROM THE DESK OF J. F. POWERS, AMERICA’S CLEANEST LAY AUTHOR, PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY, THE HOUSE THAT MEANS BUSINESS
February 29, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
So glad to hear from you, to hear that you enjoyed “Zeal”1 at least until the end. […] I am trying to shake down some British publisher for a decent advance. I have a contract (which I haven’t signed) from perhaps the best one over there, Gollancz, but he won’t go over a hundred pounds (and I’ve heard that that much changes hands in seconds in poker games). There is an error on the front of the jacket, but then the effects of original sin are always with us—ain’t that right? But they’ve used better materials in the book than is commonly done nowadays. I am presently seeing no one much. (Fr Ong, SJ,2 was here with George, briefly, a month or so ago.) Adlai Stevenson is coming to St John’s on Saturday. I ought to call up the Hyneses and tell them Jacques Maritain3 will be here at our house on Saturday and see where he really stands; Hynes, I mean. They do love a lion, Arlie and Em. […]
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Thursday morning, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letter came just now, and I hasten to reply (not that it calls for that). I was writing to you the other night when despair overcame me and I tore up the letter and went to bed.
Yes, the Waugh review is good.4 There is much to meditate in it, as I told him in a thank-you note I got off yesterday. I hadn’t realized my diction was a difficulty; I had always thought I wrote without benefit of a private argot, not doing the sort of thing, say, that Algren, with his thieves’ language, does. I suspect you’re right in thinking with Waugh I don’t have the gift of fantasy. I wish that I did, of course, but until I know what is meant by fantasy, I must pass. I mean I actually don’t know. […]
I have signed with Victor Gollancz in England, for £200 instead of £100. There was a note in a recent CW 5 that he’d visited Hospitality House in N.Y. He is a first-class publisher—Sean O’Faolain said he was the best in Britain—and lots more, as his visit to the CW might indicate. I have been difficult in my dealings—amazing my N.Y. and London agents, I’m sure—but in the end it was worth it. We will now get through June, or a good part of it.
I don’t get enough mail, contrary to what you might think. No offers at all. Well, there was one to speak before some creative writing group in Mpls. The letter was written on Pillsbury Mills stationery, and for a long time I just gazed at the envelope, smelling a grant. Not a word about expense money even. I should come down there on a Sunday evening and listen to their manuscripts being read. I gave them the green Montini.6
I haven’t got TV yet. Am waiting for the big break still. I crave it but can�
�t bring it off. Lots of surgery coming up: Boz’s eye (same kind of deal KA had) and KA’s tonsils. And I haven’t made good on my pledge to Cathedral High School. […]
Did you know that Mickey Spillane is a Jehovah’s Witness? I read it in an English paper. His publisher was in London and said Mickey has decided to mend his ways as an author. Won’t that be awful? All for now.
Jim
JACK CONROY
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
April 4, 1956
Dear Daddy-O,
Thanks for that flattering review.7 Whatever else you were, we’ll say, he was good to his friends. I have had some good reviews, though nothing as far west as Chicago until yours; nothing at all in Minneapolis or St Paul; and I guess this is what comes of not playing the regional author game, of not seeing anybody who can read. […] I don’t recognize this colony you call the Huntington Hartford?8 What kind of purses? I prefer to race on turf, you know. Actually, I am a victim to family life. Four children now, Jack. And this year, the man said, bock beer is not available in this area. This is one hell of an area, Jack. I am ordering Whey-Plus.9 I hope it changes my life. I haven’t been to Chicago for a couple of years, and the last time just passed through, from station to station at night. All for now, and again thanks for going to bat for me, Jack.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Saturday afternoon, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Has spring come to Beardsley? Has anything? I am engaged in reading twelve MSS, about half of them book-length, for the Hopwood Awards, University of Michigan, for which I am to receive $200. It is not nice work, but I can get it. […] We are going through our worst period, economically, in many years, but in two weeks, when I get these MSS read, and the money comes from England, and I come to another agreement with Doubleday, we’ll be all right. I am not complaining, understand, but would welcome the chance—like the French and Italians—to register a protest vote. […]
I can’t think of anything you should be told. No TV here yet, to put it mildly. I don’t know what I’m doing next, as a writer, I mean. Fr Kelly resists me. Enough of this raillery (which will hardly make the judicious grieve).
Jim
There was no trouble about the girls and First Communion. They were examined for an hour and a half yesterday by our pastor, passed, and, as Betty found out later, had been given a half-dollar by him. The Polish in him, I guess.
JACK CONROY
509 First Avenue South
May 20, 1956
Dear Jack,
[…] Life is very dull here, Jack. My only friend, a silversmith who makes chalices, who had been doing that for a living for several years, has taken a job.10 That leaves me St Cloud’s last self-employed artist, and sometimes I think I can make out my name on the wall. Still I turn down jobs now and then, at good money, but teaching writing courses in remote places for a year or two. We have an old house here, the use of it, with a big yard, and get by on very little, and so I stay on. When I move, I want it to be abroad—but how, with taxation worse in Ireland and England than it is here, I’ll make it isn’t clear yet.
All for now, Jack.
Jim
ROBERT LOWELL
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
Memorial Day 1956
Dear Cal,
Very happy to hear from you, after so long and after sending you a copy of my book—I’d begun to think it was a mistake. I sent Buck Moon a copy and have not heard from him; as a result, I can only deduce … I wasn’t pleased to hear that you are driving a car still, even if you are getting better. Is it the Packard still? Elizabeth is right in criticizing you. To have great drivers, we must first have great critics. […]
When Betty read of your coming blessed event, she said, “Poor Lowell.” Which is no reflection on Elizabeth, who must bear it and, doubtless, take care of it single-handed. I guess we think of our contemporaries—those who are writers—who are childless as gods, sporting about the world and going out for dinner with no thoughts of babysitters. We go nowhere. Of course, here in St Cloud there isn’t much temptation to go out.
Aren’t you a little young to be writing your autobiography? I expect to bring out a book of verse before I do mine. That means I haven’t given it a thought. When I do—and it first occurred to me when you mentioned yours—I realized that is one book I don’t even have material for in my dreamiest moments. In those moments, it isn’t hard to compile a long list of novels and plays I might write. Well, if you get to Yaddo in the first volume, and I realize you probably won’t, I have several nice glossy prints of my old car with whom you were on such intimate terms. Also a nice snapshot of Ted Roethke in a rowboat smiling at a little bass he caught. And one of you not smiling at one you caught. This is from your wading and night-fishing period. All for now. Best to you both, and write again.
Jim
Jim took a vinegary pleasure in being attacked by Catholics who were scandalized by his portrayal of the clergy. He was especially taken with the review of The Presence of Grace by a certain Father Ferdinand C. Falque in the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer. Falque wrote: “If you are interested in some literature that lays bare the studied affectations of a diseased and twisted mind, the book will prove invaluable … The stories are as unreal as the visions of an opium addict and even more vague, vapid and vain. Like the portrait of the author’s feminine face behind a masculine pipe, they are soft and weak and in no sense literary. They reek with revelations of psychological frustrations in their creator. They are sordid … tedious and emotionally vicarious. They are as grotesque as his pitifully, almost clinical portrait on the inside flap of the jacket.”11
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
June 11, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Glad to hear from you. I was wondering what ever happened to you. I see where Fr Dunphy is retiring at 82. I don’t know why I mention that in this connection, except one of these Junes I hope to see where you’ve gone up in the world—and no one knows better than I how unrewarding that can be. I mean, life is a bowl of cherries. This letter may strike you as something less than crystal clear. It is because I’m listening to Halsey Hall broadcast the Minnesota-Mississippi game from Omaha. I went out for the St John’s–Minnesota game, my first in years. The usual thing. St John’s should have won, etc., and they would’ve if they hadn’t let them drop unattended (the balls hit between two fielders) … I am trying to interest Doubleday in taking a piece of the fence (the spot between Bert Baston’s Chevrolet and Gluek’s Beer) to advertise my book, signed copy to any player who hits a home run over that spot, not a new idea, I know, but never before applied in the field of book advertising. I am speaking of the field here, Municipal Stadium, where the Rox12 play. […]
My attention was called to Fr Falque’s review about a week ago. I arrived at Don Humphrey’s one morning, and as is my custom, in person and over the telephone, I called out: “Any stirrings in the Movement?” This is a reference to the family-liturgico-rural-life movement which engages so many of us in this diocese, thanks, need I say, to an alert clergy (alert to the real dangers of the times), not the least of whom is our bishop, himself the product of family life and parents. “Yes,” Don said, “and it’s all about you.” He had attended a gathering the night before, and there had been some discussion of the review in question. At least one person thought I should go see the bishop—why is it so many people counsel me to go see the bishop?—and seek permission to sue Fr Falque. It seems I, being one of the faithful, need to do this if everything is to be correct, as regards the Church and my lowly position in it. Well, needless to say, I didn’t think much of that idea—and at this point hadn’t even seen the review. So I went down to the public library and found the review in a back number. I must say I enjoyed it, only wishing I’d met Fr Falque sometime in my wanderings. Do you think he’d sit for a portrait? As someone said, he didn’t like
the book and he said so. The only thing I didn’t care for was the reference to my “feminine face”—I hope that isn’t accurate. I have never thought so, or been accused of having a feminine face, and it seems uncalled for when applied to the father of four, ungrateful, I might add, when you consider how much I’ve done for family life, at considerable trouble and expense.
Due to the length of the ball game, Listen to the Classics will not be heard tonight (WCCO).
So if I do go to the bishop, I think that point should be brought out. Meanwhile, I am working through Don, trying to arouse my dear friends, to get them to write letters of protest to The Wanderer and sign their names. Apparently, a much harder thing to bring off than, say, a visit by me to the bishop and suing Fr Falque. […]
A note in the French edition of Perspectives, the Ford Foundation magazine pub’d in four languages, explaining the meaning of “les KC” in the first cat story: “Knights of Columbus, association catholique d’immigrants en majorité d’origine italienne.” This is the translator’s note. […]
I took a bath tonight and put on a clean shirt and drove down to the Press Bar for a glass of beer. It was formal like that, and something I’ve never tried before. Bless me, Father, I was trying to give St Cloud a chance. I was in the mood, Father, and I was prepared to take a certain amount of pleasure in it. The choice was Cold Spring or Pfeiffer’s (Schmidt’s), because I wanted no bottle beer in my mood. I wanted it from the keg, or ex cathedra, if you understand my meaning here. Well, I drank the bitter draughts and departed after one glass, returned home, and that, I’m afraid, was, and is, it. The Press Bar was dark pink inside, and I was alone at the bar.
Alone.
Jim
[…] As it says about me in this edition of Perspectives: “Il vit aujourd’hui à Saint-Cloud, Minnesota, et s’est entièrement consacré à ses travaux littéraires.”
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
Sunday noon, June 1956