Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963
Page 35
Jim and Leon Edel, National Book Award ceremony, 1963
The novel was badly handled by Doubleday. The text was rife with misprints, and breaks in the narrative were not indicated. Bookstores didn’t get the number of copies they ordered, and in the coming months the book kept going out of stock. Jim’s letters to Ken McCormick, his editor at Doubleday, became increasingly bitter: “If you weren’t out of stock on publication day, you were so close it must have gladdened the hearts of the men who worry about the high cost of warehousing … I pray that my book isn’t out of stock for periods between now and Christmas, as it’s a long, long time between Christmases.” (It was, in fact, unavailable in places for periods before Christmas.) Beyond that, Doubleday’s advertising department was too late in getting ad copy to many of the journals in which the book was to be publicized and bungled the wording of Evelyn Waugh’s expression of admiration.
Journal, October 23, 1962
After yesterday’s incredible news of a blockade on Cuba, I don’t know what to think about the future, already depressing enough.
CHARLES SHATTUCK
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
November 6, 1962
Dear Chuck,
Good to hear from you, to see that you still can’t type, are safely back in captivity, and to know that you do like the book. I wish you might’ve read it in manuscript, but otherwise I have no regrets, which is rather surprising: it is as if I’ve been packing a bag to catch a train and actually got everything in. Well, I did wish I’d made Dr Fish Dr Jass (the name on the door in the old offices of the Clems), but for reasons only an old musician might appreciate and small ones at that. (Perhaps you know the old tune “Dr Jazz,” where the man calls out, “Hello, Central, give me Dr Jazz!”)
I gather the book doesn’t come off to the extent I hoped it would, for you and others, and whether this is actually the case, due to the fact that you’ve read parts as stories (as you say), to the fact that I am not a novelist, or, what I sometimes think is the same thing, lack patience, or have an 18th-century mind, or no mind at all, I don’t know. I had hoped—and had some reason to hope, going by first reports, not only from Betty and friends, but from booksellers—that the book would be a bestseller, and perhaps it will be, over a twenty-year period, but so far it hasn’t made its move. In six weeks, it has sold about 12,000 copies (that is the total sale, rather, for there was a pretty good advance sale). This is more important to me than in the past, since this is a novel—it is the novel I was assured would make all the difference in the world—and not another collection of stories, and I do not think I’ll do better. If I can’t make it with this one, I’ll have to give up the idea I’ve lived with and on so many years—short-story writer, no, novelist, yes, economically speaking. The book was published last Thursday in England, and I’m hoping it will be less of a puzzle there. […] Best to you both and to others there.
Jim
Journal, November 7, 1962
Scotty (the typewriter man) brought back my typewriter almost completely refurbished and would take nothing. I was thinking a while ago what, in a very few words, my trouble has always been and still is: a desire to associate excellence with eminence. This is the rub that keeps me thinking (in my fashion) and writing.
Birdie Strobel, Betty’s aunt, died on November 16, 1962.
Morte D’Urban continued to be plagued by what Jim considered Doubleday’s incompetence, most especially its small print runs and failure to supply enough books to stores during the gift-buying season. He was also disappointed by the reading public’s lack of enthusiasm for the novel. By December 11, 1962, it had sold 13,864 copies, half of what Jim had hoped for and, indeed, expected. His journal makes melancholy reading, as do his letters to his editor at Doubleday, Ken McCormick: “What am I doing you ask, and the answer is suffering. I have written (and sold to The New Yorker, fortunately) a fine long story,1 but mostly I have been sweating it out, watching my hopes for the future disintegrate.”
Journal, December 14, 1962
Both bookstores in town are out of stock on my book and awaiting more copies—but I doubt they’ll arrive before Xmas … Al [Strobel] left for Idaho today,2 for Christmas. Who would have thought this the last time I drove him to the train?
JACK CONROY
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
December 18, 1962
Dear Jack,
Let this be my Xmas letter and card to you (I do not plan to purchase any of the latter this year). […] The book is still alive, Jack, and just might come on stronger, but as of now I have to call it a flop—by my expectations and perhaps even by Doubleday’s. I am pretty well disorganized in my mind as to my future, whether ’tis better to be a novelist or a short-story writer, for in my case there really isn’t a great difference in the payoff, unless, of course, the novel is going to put on the longest come-from-behind stretch run in history. Whether we stick it out here, or I take a job teaching, or we go abroad again—this depends on the book’s sale. […]
You will not send me a copy of The Disinherited, Jack.3 I’ll buy one—and that is that. If you send me one, I’ll return it to you autographed. That is the form failure has taken in my case, Jack. I autograph every book I can lay hands on, this to compensate for the great success I might have had, and am now watched when I enter the public library here. All the textbooks my daughters bring home from school I’ve autographed. Ever hear of a case like this, Jack?… Yes, I heard from Herman Kogan,4 who asked me to do a short piece for the book page, and I said I might—and thought I just might a month ago—but I am miles away from such thoughts now. I am only interested in writing my name these days. That is all, Jack.
J. F. Powers
J. F. Powers
J. F. Powers
Al Strobel died on January 22, 1963, only a couple of months after the death of his wife. The Powers family had to vacate the house they had been living in for over three years.
HARVEY EGAN
January 24, 1963
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Al Strobel died Tuesday evening, in bed, from a heart attack. Bertie, I think I told you, his wife, died in November. This is a knockout blow, their deaths, the end of something. The children—wife of dentist, a physician, an optician, and a newspaperman—are on the scene now. The funeral is tomorrow. Al was a very good and gentle man. He grew flowers, had nails and screws of all sizes, and never got excited. The children, though he didn’t work at winning them over, loved him. I used to think of him as a typical small-town businessman, really only the husband to Bertie, but for several years I have known better and have respected him. He is someone I hope to see again. I was the last one to see him alive and, fifteen minutes later, the first one to see him dead. I shouldn’t be telling you this, I know, but that is what’s on my mind. No news otherwise.
Jim
Jim, filled with gloom about Morte D’Urban’s prospects, wondered how to make a living. One moment he would resolve to take the next good teaching job offered him; the next he would turn down just such an offer.
On February 10, 1963, the six leading contenders for the National Book Award were announced. In addition to Morte D’Urban, they were Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire; Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools; Dawn Powell’s Golden Spur; Clancy Sigal’s Going Away; and John Updike’s Pigeon Feathers, and Other Stories. Publicity was hampered by the New York newspaper strike (which ran from December 8, 1962, until March 31, 1963). Jim was pleased to be nominated but believed that Nabokov would win.
HARVEY EGAN
St Cloud
March 2, 1963
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I turned down a chance to lecture at Columbia University ($500), and also to teach this spring at the University of Chicago, and also to teach at Purdue ($10,000). On the other hand I was trying on a pair of used dress rubbers at the Goodwill a while ago: impossible to find cloth-lined dress rubbers, did you know that? I
picked up an old 78 Victor record at the Goodwill which I’m looking forward to hearing this evening (we fell heir to the Strobels’ radio-phonograph), a little thing called “Sahara (We’ll Soon Be Dry like You)” from Monte Cristo Jr., which played at the N.Y. Winter Garden. It is sung by Esther Walker, whoever she was. On the flip side is “Nobody Knows (and Nobody Seems to Care),” also sung by Esther, composed by Irving Berlin. All right, so it doesn’t look like much of an evening. But that’s life in St Cloud and perhaps everywhere. […]
Jim
Morte D’Urban won the National Book Award, presented on March 12, 1963, in New York—where the newspaper strike continued. The judges were Elizabeth Hardwick, Harry Levin, and Gore Vidal. The prize was a thousand dollars. Jim was happy, except for having won over Katherine Anne Porter, who had done so much for him.
JACK CONROY
412 First Avenue South
March 10, 1963
Dear Jack,
The book has won the National Book Award, and I am leaving for New York tomorrow. […] I travel by train—Great Northern, Burlington, New York Central, and back—and should be returning through Chicago on Friday. I’ll give you a ring at your office. Sam Gadd mentioned that your novel would be out by now, and I hope to get a copy in New York—that is another reason to leave this town, where Morte D’Urban and Happiness Is a Warm Puppy are the bestsellers. […] Through two deaths in my wife’s family we will be losing our perch overlooking the Mississippi here. I wish you could be in the Americana Hotel on Tuesday (the cocktail hour) to hear my acceptance address. It starts out like this: Down in the Lehigh Valley/Me and my pal Lou …5
Jim
I’ll call you when I arrive at LaSalle Street Station, in the morning, on Friday—unless of course I am held up in New York, in any sense.
CHARLES AND SUSAN SHATTUCK
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
March 15, 1963
Dear Chuck and Suzie,
Very good of you to write, Chuck. I am only just back from the Big Town, where I was wined and dined and pleasured in general but where I behaved myself as a holy founder should: your name, too, came up every now and then, and that kept me on course, but never fear: in all my interviewings I never once mentioned you or in fact anyone much but me, me, me. My acceptance speech was a little gem of cool conceit, a thing writers should display oftener on such occasions, I think, since they have nothing to lose anyway. It now belongs to the ages, my speech, but The NY Times Bk Review will pay me to use it in the event papers are published again in the Big Town (oddly enough, I was about the only one there using that term; I did not meet Walter Winchell).6 I did meet Hedda Hopper, though, and except for our age difference, and maybe not that, we have a lot in common besides our publisher.7 “Did Doubleday send you my book?” she asked (this after she said that she did indeed believe my success was due to hard work, clean living, and large advances). “No,” I said. “That’s Doubleday!” she cried, and there we were again, hitting it off. “This man won the fiction prize, Hedda,” said a famous newspaper editor, “but I think you should’ve had it.” Then we were parted, Hedda and I—it was impossible to talk with the Life people riding herd on Hedda—but later she asked to see me again, and I was soon standing before her, hitting it off again. “I wanted to say goodbye,” she said. “And I,” I said. “Goodbye, then,” she said. “Goodbye,” I said, “and—” “Yes?” she inquired, her hat inclining dangerously toward me. “Just stay as you are,” I said in a husky tone. She smiled back, and then she was gone. The truth was I liked the old gal—and, really, 75 isn’t so old …
I called on Bob Henderson, who said he’d had a bad fall of sickness but looked fine. He asked how you’d liked the book, mine. […] Blamed whatever faults it has on you because you failed to read it in the manuscript. Well, there was a lot more I might tell you, for kicks, but except for the thousand dollars there are no clear gains: I did feel, however, that my reputation is growing and not just in my own imagination. I was a long-shot choice—a good show bet, and I am sorry if KAP will be at all disappointed, as perhaps she has reason to be (I still haven’t read her novel); I hate the role I’ve been cast in, or will be, say, in Time, assuming, of course, the story appears there. (The Time interviewer, after finishing with me, said, “Now I’m off to Little, Brown.” “Is that the story?” I asked. “That’s the story,” I was told.) […]
The date for the awardees to appear on the Today program on TV was suddenly called off, our appearances, with only this by way of explanation and this only by hearsay: “Who’s heard of ’em?” This, after my poor wife, children, and bloodthirsty friends were all alerted to the time and channel. And had to be de-alerted, long-distance, late at night. In these matters, I am strictly eye for an eye and will quietly await an opportunity, coast-to-coast and prime time, to tell the nation. Hugh Downs, who represents all that’s best in our thinking today, is the emcee of the Today program and provided one of the lines in my book (speaking of Islamism), “That’s one of the world’s top religions.” Enough of this, Chuck and Suzie.
Love,
Jim
JACK CONROY
412 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
March 19, 1963
Dear Jack,
Thanks for the clippings. Joe Diggles also responded, and so I’ll be able to send one pair to my folks in New Mexico. About the Kogan story, Jack, never fear: I would never see you in the role you’ve been cast in, as you are one of the last gentlemen on earth, and since very few people, if any, would take exception to the idea that you shaped my career, since few would know otherwise, well, what the hell? I only wish you’d had more to do with it, that I’d known you earlier—and, of course, you remain the first published arthur I ever laid eyes on. In fact, in rereading the above, I only wish I had a career. […]
I rec’d an invitation today from Mrs R. Ferguson of the Friends of Literature to attend the 32nd Annual Shakespeare Birthday Program and Award Dinner on Saturday, April 27, 6:30 in the Walnut Room of the Bismarck Hotel, but she don’t say nothing about giving me an a-ward, just talks about spending the evening with kindred spirits, and nothing about transportation either. It don’t sound like my kind of thing, Jack. Once you get a taste of an a-ward, Jack, you want it all the time.
STOP SENDING ME THOSE DAMNED LEAFLETS AS I AM SAVED.
Best wishes,
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
St Cloud
March 21, 1963
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I do have a lot of mail, as a matter of fact, but not as much as you’d think, and it is already tapering off. Nothing is different—and the prospect ahead gives me the shakes. By which I mean the exodus. I find, at this point, I have no needle on my compass.
I’d be glad to tell you of my adventures in the Big Town, actually not so exciting, since I was bent on staying vertical and in fact managed to do so. High points: Hedda Hopper, Ed Skillin (who I hadn’t met before), my acceptance speech, the hit of the evening, my dazzling performances with the interviewers, my relentless affability—so that I became thoroughly sick of myself and was glad to get the hell out of town. […] I was decent all the way, telling Doubleday I’d rather wait and see before signing on for more advance royalties. It will come to that, of course, in time. As a winner, let me say you can’t win, not on this course, and perhaps not on the next. Anon.
Jim
Journal, March 29, 1963
Word today from Ken McCormick that I, if willing, can have honorary degree from Adelphi College on June 12, with Leopold Stokowski, Mary Martin, and William Schuman. I don’t think so.8
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
St Cloud
April 11, 1963
Dear Katherine Anne,
[…] The award […] made my life difficult where you were concerned. Your letter of congratulation relieved my mind, but I hated my part in the business, though God knows I needed something of the sort. I had c
ounted on my novel to sell enough to give me a house of my own in Ireland, or somewhere, and a couple of years. I was insane to think this could happen, people told me in New York recently, said I was lucky to have done as well as I had with the book. Well, if so, I don’t know how to look the future in the face, for I don’t expect to write a better book and certainly not a more salable one. […]
Yours …
Jim
Jim won the Thermod Monsen Award from the Society of Midland Authors, presented in Chicago on May 24, 1963.
HARVEY EGAN
May 3, 1963
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Boz thinks the Kralick-Perry trade is a good one for our Twins.9 I don’t know myself (know thyself, right?), but I do not think Cal10 will ever put our welfare before his own. About a day at Met,11 I’ll have to go down sometime, I know, but dread it. Maybe by bus or train, with cab to and from Met. I wish, as always, Betty could drive and bear more of the burden. Marriage isn’t a 50–50 affair, I know, before you sic your curate on me.
Big fund-raising campaign beginning here, with out-of-town strong-arm men masterminding it. One thing they plan is to make anyone who doesn’t come up with it wear a scarlet A back and front. Fortunately, they will accept payment in livestock, agricultural products, or old manuscripts. […]
Word from Chicago is that the affair will be in the King Arthur Room of I’ve-forgotten-which hotel and that some of the men will wear black tie. I plan to wear white sneakers with brown rubber soles and a towel around my shoulders. […]
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
May 7, 1963
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I hate this lousy heat, which is all very well when you’re wheeling around in a monastery garden, with your sandals on and the swallows twittering around your toes. On St Germain Street it’s murder, and I often think, yes, this is how I’ll go: down on the pavement, with the butts and Popsicle sticks and Mr Goodbar wrappers, to the music of hillbilly music in the passing convertible, farewell, Household Finance, S. S. Kresge, Three Sisters, it was good while it lasted—or was it?