Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963

by J. F. Powers

  I was amazed to hear of Em’s coming trip to Paris, having heard from him in the first mail today. (Incidentally, there is another advantage, two deliveries of mail in Ireland.) Burden him with commissions; perfume; pornography; the latest on the priest-workers. You should get some good evenings out of his trip. Let’s hope it won’t all be the kind of grist he can turn to CFM1 purposes. I hope he manages to get drunk while there. I do not go so far as to wish him syphilis. But I do hope he has a good time. All for now. And please write. I was happy to have your letter, even though I could do with less detail on eye doctors (as you sensed, judging from your final remarks). You really must curb your interest in the physical, Leonard. Man does not live by homeopathy alone, you know. Do you need any seaweed?

  Jim

  We had a call from one of Fr Fennelly’s curates this afternoon. He disturbed me somewhat by repeatedly mentioning that I should call for him if I needed him. He asked what I thought of Fr F.’s practice of having the Mass explained from the pulpit as it’s progressing, and I said I didn’t care much for it but that I wasn’t much of a missal man myself. “Nor am I,” said he. We said we found eggs pretty high in Ireland, and he said, “Oh, keep a few hens.” He also said that Greystones was the most Protestant town in Ireland except for Belfast. Yes, I said, we’ve been told that living here, we’re not really living in Ireland. “Exactly,” he said. I thought this might be a good thing but didn’t develop the idea.

  JOE AND JODY O’CONNELL

  St Stephens

  November 4, 1957

  Dear Jody and Joe,

  […] JF taking over here (Betty suddenly conked out and would like to turn in but is chary of cold sheets). Let me say too that I enjoyed the letter and the portrait,2 and I wish you wouldn’t apologize for either—not that anyone did apologize for the portrait. I am thinking of a large—about seven feet—frame for it, the thing being so small it would have to be widely matted, with hair, I think, old beard combings or, in default of those, horsehair such as pokes through our mattress and through the sheet. I always think of Leonard when I feel a sprig of horsehair at my backside. But be that as it may. Both of you should continue in your respective fields: the news of the Movement from Joe; sketches from Jody—and how about a few nudes? The subject could be the same—say, that one scene where the principal ingredients are horror and moonlight, call it “The Kill,” or “Connubial Bliss.”

  Sorry—referring back to your letter—that it has come down to the Humphreys and the Bakers. Still, that is a lot, by our standards here. We see no one at all. We almost rented a house in the same borough Sean O’Faolain lives in, and from friends of the O’F.’s at that, and I suppose they’ll hear about us from that encounter. I haven’t got in touch with Sean, preferring to wait until we can appear in a better light, internally, that is. We have been pretty low and probably show it. We have rented a house, however, in Dalkey, which is up the line a piece, toward Dublin, once the home of G. B. Shaw, the town, that is, not the house we’ll be in. We can’t move in until December, though. It isn’t quite what I had in mind (hardly anything is, I find), is large enough, imposing enough, with views beyond my expectations, but it won’t give me the solitude I seem to require to do my own work. […]

  The bathroom is practically American, and we’ll have the use of appliances such as vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and fridge. These are items you begin to covet when you live in a place like our present one: our toilet seat, for instance, is unfinished lumber that comes apart on one side like a jigsaw puzzle and has a leather hinge; the kitchen, to put it in understandable terms, would be fine for a blind sculptor to mess around in, has a concrete floor. […]

  Best,

  Jim

  P.S.: If Em wears a fedora and his mouton storm coat, won’t he have to cut a hole for his eyes? Best. —Jim

  HARVEY EGAN

  St Stephens, Victoria Road

  Greystones, County Wicklow

  November 12, 1957

  Dear Fr Egan,

  I’m slow on the rebound, I know, but do you know what I’ve been through? Nobody knows the trouble: children seasick, flu in mid-Atlantic, Betty down in Cork, and more of the same here. This house has view of sea, Bray Head, railroad tracks, but prehistoric kitchen and bathroom (the toilet seat has a leather hinge), and when you pull the chain, it sounds like the Grand National field landing in Becher’s Brook. […] Around the first of December we’ll be moving to:

  Ard na Fairrge

  Mount Salus

  Dalkey, County Dublin

  This house is 125 years old, four bedrooms, two living rooms, one of which will become my study, kitchen–dining room (the owners removed a wall after tasting life in America), a large room we’ll turn over to the children, formerly a billiard room, at present site of a loom for weaving tweed. And wonderful views of Dublin and Killiney Bays; Dalkey Island with a small ruins said to have been the stamping grounds of St Begnet (I think that’s the name). […]

  No theatre yet, haven’t had the mind for it. Only managed the races last Saturday at Leopardstown. Very fine. I came home three or four quid to the good, thanks to being on the longest shot of the day—30–1. I do believe if I could just get away from the family long enough to concentrate, I could support them in style on my handicapping. I made one sentimental bet with you in mind: a horse called Four Roses ridden by a jockey named Egan. Ran way out.

  Fr Fennelly going ahead with the liturgy. We arrived at the end of a week advertised as “the Greystones Pattern,” devoted to “togetherness,” culminating in a Gaelic football game visible from our back windows. Did you ever stop to think what the Communion of the Saints really means? It doesn’t mean what you might think; not Communion and not Saints; Togetherness. We haven’t spoken to Fr F., only to a new curate who asked me what I thought of the to-do at Princeton, saying he was for the man there because his bishop was supporting him. I mumbled something about Maritain being on the other side, but I gathered that bishops were trumps. I can never remember what’s trumps.

  We are lonesome for the North Star State and our dear brethren there. Even the snow we hear about sounds attractive now. Amazin’, ain’t it? Sometimes I wonder if old Abbé Garrelts with his monotonous line about the far-off hills always looking greener hasn’t got a hold of something. What one needs is a pass on the airlines good all over the world. Some of the angels found heaven itself dull, didn’t they?

  I had a copy of The Reporter with my story3 in it sent to you, and I hope—not that you actually liked it—but that it didn’t make you pewk. The few reports I’ve had have been favorable.

  All for now. Emerson Hynes, by the way, is in Paris at the moment, I understand, as aide to Gene McCarthy and a congressional delegation. That’s the way to travel.

  Please write all the news.

  Jim

  ART AND MONA WAHL; BIRDIE AND AL STROBEL; BERTHA SEBERGER

  St Stephens, Victoria Road

  Greystones, County Wicklow

  November 19, 1957

  Postscript to Betty’s letter:

  Just a word of thanks, Birdie, for sending on the mail; I am always glad to know when I’ve written a good story and was cheered by your comments and by Nana’s, and today by my mother’s (who ordinarily has little to say but who loved this one) and by Chuck Shattuck’s, sent in your letter rec’d today. He is one of the dedicatees of my first book, and my best critic, and when he says I’ve done my most best, as he does, I feel repaid a hundredfold. We haven’t heard anything from Ruth Mitchell yet, and hope she was not disappointed, didn’t expect something different: she only knew that it was about the house. Of course it is, but about much more.

  It isn’t often that I think about the old house. I don’t like to think about it. I get upset and angry when I think that a year ago I missed the autumn there and little knew that that was the last one for me and for us there. We would all be happy back there, I know, but that chapter has ended. We did not end it—and I trust whoever was responsible (
aside from the circumstance of the college expanding, an incidental to the swift kick we got) is now satisfied. […]

  All for now. Please keep up the correspondence. I think I enjoy it more than anyone else, which is not to say that Betty doesn’t enjoy it to the fullest; I just enjoy it more. Once more, in writing, my thanks to you and Al, to Art and Nana, for all your labor and concern in our behalf.

  Jim

  LEONARD AND BETTY DOYLE

  St Stephens, Victoria Road

  Greystones, County Wicklow

  November 20, 1957

  Dear Leonard and Betty,

  We rec’d two communications today; your letter this morning and a royalty check for the British edition of Prince (1948): 67¢.

  JF: Nine copies home, five export. Fourteen! Some sale!

  Betty: Well, it’s up, isn’t it?

  We are now nearing the hour of five, the light outside grows purple, the light inside is on, Betty is rustling The Irish Times, our glasses are empty (of Power’s Dublin Whiskey), the coal fire glows at $30 a ton, and the two boys nap on and on, and on the radio from somewhere in the hills of Durham a Catholic seminary choir sings vespers. I pick up my Doyle and am moved to respond to your fine letter.

  The girls (to complete the picture) are on a train somewhere between Greystones and Killiney, where they are now enrolled at a convent school run by the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, an order founded by a woman named Connolly whose husband, I understand, after instigating her higher vocation, reverted to the flesh and wanted her back; too late. Anyway, it is a good, expensive school where the standards are apparently high. Ours were tested and found “intelligent but very backward educationally.”

  The big news here is that the McCarthys4 walked in on us Sunday, around noon. I was reading The Observer, Betty slumming around in the kitchen. They were our first visitors—except for the curate. At first I thought, seeing Gene suddenly before me, that Em would follow, but he didn’t. He chose Rome over Ireland, tourism over the Movement—or so it seems to me—and thereby showed himself for what he is. We had dinner with Sean O’Faolain and others at a good restaurant Monday night—this at Gene’s invitation and expense. We had a good time. My regret, though, was that Em wasn’t there. The McCarthys are out of touch with the stirrings in the Movement. Gene seemed a little hurt that I didn’t consider him in it anymore. Let’s just say the McCarthys are on leave of absence. I promised them that if Gene lost the next election and returned to the land, we’d return to watch. […]

  Speaking of Sputnik, the only people to mention it to me have been the barber and a shopgirl; the former thought we probably knew as much about it as the Russians but just hadn’t put what we knew to proper use, and the latter wondered if I’d seen it pass over yet. I hadn’t, and haven’t. What time is it on?

  I confess I was glad to hear things have been “grim” for you these last four weeks. Misery loves company—and it’s hard to believe one doesn’t lead the list these last weeks. […]

  Times are considered very hard in Ireland, much unemployment, and I can believe it. On the other hand, an Englishman who runs a café in Dalkey told me that nobody suffers in Ireland, not as he understands the term. The hardware man (Allie Evans) in Greystones said quite a few people here had left for America, mostly for Canada, but that he thought they’d be sorry. I agreed with him. We thought if a man could make a living at all, he’d be happier here. Anyone leaving Greystones for anywhere else will miss the scenery, I know. There are moments when the sun, filtered by the clouds, shines on the sea and on stone and on the green in such a way that I wonder if such moments aren’t enough to make up for everything. […]

  Jim

  At the end of November, the Powers family moved into Ard na Fairrge, a decaying Georgian house on Mount Salus in Dalkey, county Dublin. Betty discovered to her and Jim’s horror that she was pregnant again.

  ROBERT LOWELL AND ELIZABETH HARDWICK

  Ard Na Fairrge

  Mount Salus

  Dalkey, County Dublin

  December 3, 1957

  Dear Cal and Elizabeth,

  Glad to have your good letter and late word on your fellow immortal (this is a reference to Ted Roethke). I happened to hear from Buck Moon about the same time and passed the news (about Ted) onto him.5 Buck was coming out of some kind of tunnel himself, but he didn’t say what kind. I hadn’t heard from Buck for years. He is now working for Curtis Brown, the agent.

  This house we’re in now is an improvement on the other. Scabrous Georgian, noble views of the sea, turf in the fireplaces, room for the children. Unfortunately, we aren’t in the mood to appreciate it, having experienced some terrible misgivings about expatriation and yet with no place to live at home—and hating it where we were, a good old house.

  Have no friends, have no plans for any. I may have to work. Either that or fritter and go down. I’m glad to hear you’re operating as a poet again. You’ll be better for the layoff, I think, but I am also hoping you will continue your autobiography, which struck me as the real thing, in your best comic vein and more.

  Yes, I’ve always enjoyed reading Wilson,6 only disappointed when he touches upon the spiritual and sounds like one of the little Blue Books published by Haldeman-Julius,7 but even that, in a man otherwise so perceptive, is refreshing. I only hope he never gets religion on that level and daresay it isn’t likely he will. I shook his hand in the New Yorker offices once and admired a tweed coat he was wearing and his overall grizzled look. The Scotch in him.

  All for now. Write when you feel like it. I hope Boston still interests Elizabeth. I think you’re right to be there, where you belong. There is a man living next door to us in a Georgian morgue, teaches at Trinity, high up in the Church of Ireland (layman), and I don’t know whether he’s the poet or not.8 Seems to me Faber publishes a poet by the name of Stanford, his name. Everybody (one or two people) has said we should enjoy his company. I spotted him this morning sitting in the window on the second floor, the open window facing out to sea (and England), reading a book, and looking like somebody in Henry James, or my idea of same.

  Jim

  DON AND MARY HUMPHREY

  Ard Na Fairrge

  Mount Salus

  Dalkey, County Dublin

  December 7, 1957

  Dear Don and Mary,

  A little slow in replying this time. One week ago, about to the minute—it is 3:15 p.m.—we moved into this house. In the past week we have gradually ordered our lives, though they are still rather chaotic by our standards in St Cloud. We are realizing more and more that we had a system of a sort there, though it was not satisfactory; it will take some time to equal it here—and the question before us is—is it ever possible in a rented house, subject to an owner’s decisions? I think the answer is no, and when you have a lot of children, it is important not to have to start over at intervals. I realize this is something you, and others who own their own homes, have known for some time. My trouble is not wanting to settle for the life that seems to go with home owning, but I am coming to see the error of my ways, having paid and paid with these false starts and find the latest one harder than the one before it, right on back to Avon and St Paul. All this is not a prelude to our making a home in Ireland; I don’t even mean that we’d like to do that. We wouldn’t in our present mood, which is very odd. To us, anyway. We have been so busy with the material side of existence that we haven’t been able to enjoy the advantages of living here. I get up in the morning, and it’s almost an hour before I get the fires going, since we were burning only turf until yesterday; now we have some coal for the fireplace in the kitchen. […]

  My study has two impossible chairs, which we continue to sit in, however, and the best fireplace in the house, especially made for burning turf; there are two holes on either side, toward the front of it, connected with tile pipe which runs a few feet through the hall, and into an entryway from which it sucks cold air, just naturally does it, and this blows on the turf, making it burn beautifully.
Turf makes a very pleasant fuel, but most of these fireplaces are too small for it, being designed for coal. Turf has to have room to be spread, and you have to introduce the fresh pieces to the rear of the fireplace, pull forward the hot ones. The odor is nice, and a good thing it is, for we get some very strong, wayward breezes up here so high, so close to the sea. I mention this because I’ve just come from the studio, eyes streaming, having had to transfer the turf from it to my study and give up on the fire in the studio for today; I think the chimney is too low for the wind we have now. […] All for now. […]

  Jim

  Journal, December 7, 1957

  We have had a thorough shaking up. We no longer know what’s best for us. I don’t anyway—and this is a startling statement for me to make. Here it is past midnight now, and I am sitting here in the study, with the radio playing, alone. I might be back in St Cloud, St Paul, Milwaukee, Cape Cod, Greystones, or Avon—ten years ago—for all the change there has been in my habits. The radio station is German—but so it was six years ago in Greystones. I am not unhappy at this time of day—except now and then. But when the days pass as they have lately, I do feel the pressure of waste … This is the time to get on with my work. It will be hard, unless conditions change—unless we can find a way to order our family life—to make the months ahead mean anything for my work. Betty’s probable pregnancy is the final turn of the screw—worse than ever before, this one, in these circumstances. We must somehow manage. We aren’t far from the rocks, must somehow negotiate them. I have to be careful, to keep control.

  BIRDIE AND AL STROBEL; ART AND MONA WAHL; BERTHA SEBERGER