by J. F. Powers
A letter from a Miss Riordan, who wants the author of The Presence of Grace to write an 800-word story for her magazine for blind children. Is this not the woman who got me to write one before and then wanted me to change it after I did write it—to which request I never responded? For a long time I had her letter around in my study. Now I must close. […]
Much love,
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
November 10, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Long time no hear. I am established here in two rooms with a view, the radio is giving me the Michigan-Illinois game, The New Yorker is on the stands with my latest story,9 the first chapter of my new novel, I am smoking “Erinmore Flake,” a product of Northern Ireland, smoked on my arrival in Ireland and so full of sweet dreams for me. Tomorrow is Katherine Anne’s birthday, Tuesday is Boz’s, and I’ve just purchased a wristwatch for him: I want him to learn the value of time. He and Betty are arriving for a short visit on Tuesday. Except for the necessity to introduce Betty to the faculty, and probably have some people in, I am looking forward to the visit. […]
It is now 1:30 Minnesota time, and I must try to get the Iowa-Minnesota game. I suppose the Hawkeyes will play dirty again, as they always do against our guys. Regards to Sr Eugene Marie.
Jim
Betty and Boz came for a visit; Jim gave a party; both ventures were surprisingly successful.
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
November 17, 1956
Dear Betty,
Nine o’clock here, in an hour you’ll be arriving in Chicago, and since I left you, I’ve been thinking about you, both of you, and hoping all goes well. […]
I put the table back in the living room but otherwise have left everything untouched. It is cold here tonight, or can it be that you’re gone. The Man Downstairs is entertaining tonight. Pansy and Dwight are quiet, even to the hangers. I regret that I must have seemed rather dim and unresponsive in the station. All for now. Write when you can. And love to the girls, Hughlie, and to you and Boz.
Jim
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
November 23, 1956
Dear Betty,
The morning after Thanksgiving, with George here reading a book. […]
I had a miserable night with George. He snores, spins rapidly in bed at intervals, and in general gives you a rough time. So I was tired all day yesterday. He may come and see us around Xmas time; I urged him to do so. […] Much love to you all, and especially to you.
Jim
Dwight: I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Pansy: You don’t take care of yourself. You’re too proud to wear your sweatshirt.
Hangers: Clang, clang, cling.
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m., December 5, 1956
Dear Betty,
[…] I have just eaten one of my little dinners, quaint I guess you’d have to call them: spaghetti, half a can of corn, tea, and cookies. It was between that and pancakes, but I decided to hold off on them for a bit. I have MSS to read tonight because I have two appointments in the morning. […]
I went down for the mail this morning and met Mr Collins. He asked me to mention to Mr Rice that some apartment or other would be vacant on December 15. I looked at him, wondering if he’d said something that really concerned me. I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about this apartment. No, he meant the one at the head of the stairs. “They’re going back to California. He doesn’t like the climate here.” I rocked and teetered at this news. Finally I said, with a winning smile: “Well, it’s better than California.” To which he nodded and smiled. So Dwight and Pansy are departing, and that little scene I conveyed to you was pregnant with meaning, as we say in creative writing. I feel I should give them some kind of going-away party, but the trouble with that is that I haven’t yet met them. Maybe just a gift. Even that presents difficulties, for I heard Pansy, through their open front door as I was coming up the steps, telling someone that they were asking so much for this and so much for that. They are selling their furniture! How can they do it? They’ve lived with these things since last September.
Now I’ll close. Mr Kennedy and Mr Whelan10 are taking me out for dinner tomorrow night. I was surprised to learn from Mr K. that Mr W. has only just in the last week rec’d his master’s. I told Mr K. that if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have been quite so friendly with Mr W. We have to draw the line somewhere, after all.
Much love,
Jim
Jim and Betty planned a Boxing Day conversazione to be held at the red house.
HARVEY EGAN
GO BLUE!11
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
December 6, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
It was good hearing from you after so long. George, who at Thanksgiving trained in and planed out, said he’d seen little of you. I wonder who your friends are, now that you’re cut off from janitor supplies and hardware and merchandise in general. I passed through the Twins last week, not stopping except for a tasty breakfast in the Mpls station.
My calendar grows more and more interesting: only eight more classes to be held. I’ve been a regular con about marking off the days. Not that it hasn’t been good. I am better for it, of course. I was getting a little shaggy, intellectually. With my basically brilliant mind, it wasn’t long before I was making sallies with the best of them. Another thing I’ve been doing in collegiate gatherings is suddenly hitting someone on the arm, the idea being to leave a black-and-blue mark. We all do that. I tried ripping open a few flies—some, like Hask, majored in that at Quincy College Academy—but the zipper has done away with all that. Tripping, of course, is still done, and breaking wind. The more we change, the more we’re the same, I always say. As I say, it’s been good, not only for me, but for those I meet. I seem to be very popular. I have been asked to read from my work here and there, but of course I had to refuse, at the money offered.
I’m glad you thought the last story good. I never know what you’ll think. The response has been light except from my immediate family. Actually, I think I’m outgrowing my public. I’m shooting for immortality.
About Yuletide cheer, we are planning a really big affair. You’ll get an invitation, and in your case and George’s we can offer overnight accommodations. We are flushing the woodwork for guests, and it should be plenty gala. I am going into Detroit on Saturday to look for a punch bowl. I saw a beauty in Chicago the other day, but it was priced a little high ($500) when you consider you don’t use a punch bowl every day. In the end I may settle for a commode belonging to the Mitchells. I don’t know Phil Silvers’s work. I think Sid Caesar’s skits good, though, and like to look at Jackie Gleason, who always reminds me of Dick Keefe.
I am glad to hear that The Wanderer is getting after Elvis. Somebody ought to, not that there isn’t a lot of good in him, or in the way our merchants prepare us for Christmas, for that matter (vide L. Cowley). I don’t know what can be done for Gordon.12 I do think, and hope, he’ll be spoiled for the grey life he was leading in Chicago, not that there isn’t a lot of good in a grey life, and certainly Chicago is a good place for it, not that Chicago doesn’t have its … Say, how do you like these apples? About that marriage course for student nurses, skip it. Not that such a course isn’t … Hey, I can’t stop this! How would you like a rubber Santa Claus over three feet tall, more than thirty-two inches around, roly-poly, and best of all you just pull the tape and he actually talks, says, “Merry Christmas”??????
Jim
Please try to make it up for the fete, for which you’ll soon have an invitation.
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sund
ay, 2:30 p.m., December 9, 1956
Dear Betty,
I carried your letter to church. […] They had the pledge,13 after a long fatuous explanation, and I remained seated, conspicuously. I didn’t have anything but exasperated thoughts all during Mass. To hear that awful apology for what the man himself knew better about, but making the most of it because it was demanded by the cardinal.14 I think there is nothing drearier than that aspect of the Church in America and cast around in my mind for a way to act. In Grace, though, that story, I’ve said about all there is to say. I noticed a little more nervousness in the man about to ask the people to rise and join the Legion, but of course it will go on and on. So much for that. My Sunday Sickness is on me, and bad today.
Much love,
Jim
The payoff on my experience in church this morning was that I stumbled going up the steps on the way out (it was in the basement of the church proper) and was down for a moment. Pride goeth before a fall!
Did you see Mr K.’s poem in Dec. 8 New Yorker?15
Invitations look good.
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor
Monday, 12:15 p.m., December 10, 1956
Dear Betty,
I’ve just finished a morning of heavy reading of MSS. The mail came a few minutes ago: two from you, one from Fr Egan, who wants to know what to wear and when it is and, if there is to be boxing, whether he should wear his aluminum cup. […]
I was dismayed to hear about KA and Mary getting lost. I must reread it when I have time, your account, and see if it makes any more sense to me. Yes, that should be the end of such junkets unchaperoned. […]
You can look for Fr Egan at the conversazione, and probably George, though maybe not. For he’s sure to have something planned. I do hope Barnharts won’t come. But if they do, I think it won’t make much difference, considering how gala everything and everybody will be. […]
Much love … and keep things under control, as you’ve been doing.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor
December 11, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letter rec’d, and I hasten to fill you in. Boxing Day, as any dictionary will tell you, is the day after Xmas. You are to come at 8:30 p.m., though in your case we’d like it if you came earlier, since you are so handy. I have a lot of decanting to do at the last minute, and somebody will have to park cars—I am buying one of those batons they use to direct traffic at night. Can you see Snyder’s Drugstore (or Fr Stelmes) about the use of klieg lights, or searchlights, or whatever you call them? I want this thing to be memorable, plenty gala. Yes, do wear your cup. It may get rough later on, with most of the guests (I daresay) only one short generation away from utter alcoholism: prim characters like Doyle and Hynes, I mean, their closets jam-packed with skeletons: it is these I hope to bring out. We are serving Xalapa Punch, and no substitutions. I am of the opinion that none of us is as bad as we seem to all the others. I am making one more effort to encompass us all with fellowship. […]
I am also inviting, from St Cloud, Mr and Mrs Wormhoudt: he is the author of The Demon Lover and other books dealing with literature as a kind of wet dream (a Freudian).16 Hyneses have been wanting to meet the Wormhoudts, regarding them with some alarm, I think, as perhaps representing a threat to Christian family life and its approach. Me, I say they’re all, intellectually, very shady characters. If that Legion of Decency pledge came from the hand of your new archbishop, as I think it did, he is still suffering from the same thing as my own bishop, as you’ve noted on occasion, tautology. I say “still” because his statement on Abp Murray’s death might have come from Amos and Andy, from the latter to be exact. However … it becomes more and more apparent to me that the function of the American hierarchy is to test the humility of those under their guidance. I thought this as I listened to the priest here Sunday explain the purpose of the Legion of Decency pledge. I am still unpledged. I wish the whole thing would get lost. I am sending you some Trollope, a paper edition, and suggest you read Barchester Towers; Mrs Proudie’s reception is sort of what we have in mind for Boxing Day.
Academically,
Jim
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor
December 12, 1956
Dear Betty,
[…] Late last night I got to work on Fr Urban. I had my best night since coming here and also, I think, one of the best nights ever: it is Christmas Eve at Duesterhaus17 and all through the house … only the noise of checkers. […]
Much love,
Jim
The door to their apt stood open, the apt was bare, and obviously Dwight and Pansy had flown.
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor
December 13, 1956
Dear Betty,
[…] I’m worried about all the sickness, though the last things you said were hopeful. I wish we could find out why we have so much of what KA has now.18 It is really a disagreeable habit for a family to get into, and we seem to have done that, for several years now. I am not blaming anybody, understand: it is a development I don’t like to see, and that is all I have to say. […]
I had a malted and hamburger at a drugstore where I came across an article by Leslie Fiedler in The Reporter.19 I then went to work on a letter to the editor, a copy of which I enclose.20 I don’t know if they’ll use it of course, or what the effect will be, but I think it’s time someone made the points I do. Or think I do. […]
A letter came yesterday, airmail from England, for a James Purdy. This morning I see it is still outside the mailboxes, now marked “not at this address.” I went down, after thinking about it, and had another look, brought it up, compared the typing on the envelope with that on an envelope of Gollancz’s. I decided to open it, remembering that Austin has some Scotch tape and the phrase “opened by mistake.” It is a letter from Victor,21 which I enclose. […]
I was amused to hear of everyone having so much trouble with Boxing Day. I think they have more than we planned: I think of them, more than ever, as barnyard animals going their familiar paths from stall to pasture and back, day in and day out. Any kind of reading would have familiarized them not with the exact day but with the word. […]
Jim
JACK CONROY
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
December 18, 1956
Dear Jack,
I’m sorry to say that I have joined the academy too, and so what you say about us two, degreeless and alone, isn’t true for the moment. Yes, in fact, it is true. I am still degreeless, and I’m left pretty much alone. I came here in September and will finish up in mid-January. I thought I needed the money, Jack. We had been running down ever since 1953, my last good year, everything wearing out and machinery giving up. I see by my little calendar, which I keep amending, an old con doing time, that I have only five classes to go; one tomorrow and four in January. Then back to St Cloud and Ignorance!
Yes, I did see Leslie Fiedler’s article. I have written to the editors about it. If they publish my letter, it will be worth reading. I concentrated on the dig about publishing in The New Yorker. I know Fiedler, and like him, but decided to return the frankness, if that’s what you call it. It is a problem what to do about the books of one’s friends, a problem I’ve tried to avoid. What I really dislike about the article, and this I don’t mention at all, is that I and the others were invited to the ball, as it were, but in the end he’s dancing every dance with Saul. I doubt that Saul’s as good as he says in this book.22 Someday I’ll read the book and see. At the moment I’d rather not confirm my suspicions. Actually, as you must know, Jack, I don’t have much heart for literary controversy. What I’d like to be is a horse trainer, or simply a man of great wealth, and go about doing good, not forgetting myself.
When I finish up in January, I intend to look
you up for lunch. It’ll be the 17th, I think; a Thursday. Could you hold that open? I’ll let you know if it’s to be another day.
Academically yours,
Jim
Very glad to hear Clocker23 is abroad again and at Oxford. I have noticed that he’s become an expert on British writers, have read his reviews here and there. Tell him I’d like to see him at Oxford, sunning himself at Parson’s Pleasure or bicycling on High. I often think of Clocker. He is, in fact, as we used to say in fun, a sweet guy. Would that we could go racing together in England!
BETTY POWERS
507 Church Street
Ann Arbor
Tuesday morning, December 18, 1956
Dear Betty,
[…] Who the hell sent the envelope addressed “Earl”?24 Mrs Barnhart, I imagine, just to make it perfect, and you did say they’d accepted. The hand is what you’d have to call illiterate, and so I eliminate Mrs Wormhoudt. Ah, well, I’m glad the printer didn’t make that mistake. […]
