by J. F. Powers
But to return to Jim’s letters. In the end, their wit and drollery and festive turns of phrase won me over. A distance developed between me, the person actually present in the predicament the letters describe, and me, the reader. And indeed, in selecting the letters to tell this story, I increasingly felt I was bringing order to a situation where there was little. With that came satisfaction and a certain amount of peace.
My sister Jane, on the other hand, found reading the letters more troubling. She was bowled over by the early ones, by Jim’s expressions of love for our mother. But the feeling aroused by the whole twenty-one-year run of them was one of overwhelming, inalterable sadness. “All that energy, all those plans, all that crazy idealism in the beginning: it somehow turned in on itself to make something—our family, our way of life—that was always contrary and constricted. There are hints of JFP’s truculence in the early letters, and they make me uneasy and unhappy, as they pierce through the beautiful fabric of his prose like little daggers. Also, he was so hopelessly impractical: How could it ever have turned out well?”
The last word will be Jim’s, from Ireland (again), some seven years further down the road. We find him having recently acquired a pair of “Tall Man” pajamas, now transformed into yet another emblem of the human condition of which he was always an appreciative victim.
Greystones, County Wicklow
August 23, 1970
Dear Fred and Romy,
[…] I was interested to see [from Betty’s letter] what it is we are doing, or will be doing (finishing our books and making a pile and coming back), as we don’t often discuss such matters and I often wonder what it is we are doing, or will be doing. As for lonely, well, all men are lonely. I am myself lonely, always have been, and never more than when in my new pajamas. I think of myself then as the last man on earth, as Tall Man. My sleeves extend four inches beyond my fingertips, one of my legs is, for some reason, narrower, the stitching overlapped for a few inches before rejoining the main stitching, like a service road, and I bag in the back, I’m told. However, I am well and working, and hope you are the same.
+ TALL MAN
NOTES
Introduction
1 From an unpublished manuscript in the hands of Rosemary Hugo Fielding.
1. Fortunately, I am under no obligation to earn a living wage
1 Published in Accent (Winter 1943).
2 Bill was attending the Harvard Business School.
3 William Fifield (1916–1987), the writer and editor.
4 Published in Accent (Autumn 1943).
5 Sister Mariella Gable was compiling an anthology of Catholic fiction, Our Father’s House (1945), in which she included “The Trouble” and “Lions, Harts, Leaping Does.”
6 Jack Howe.
7 Ramona Rawson (1920–1999), former girlfriend, who did not show deference to George Garrelts.
8 Garrelts wrote to Jim (November 17, 1942), “A stand is about to be taken in re Ramona Rawson … You are not in love, are not likely to be, and cannot ever abidingly or successfully be. My evidence is detailed. She would not darn your socks. She would not accompany us to Mass. She sat sullenly by in the presence. She found no ways during our stay in Waupaca [Wisconsin].”
9 Henry Wallace was replaced by Harry Truman as Roosevelt’s running mate at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
10 T. S. Eliot, The Rock.
11 St. Anthony Village, Oakmont, an orphanage under the direction of Father Louis Farina where famous retreats were given, especially those led by Father John Hugo.
12 Lollipop.
13 Jack Howe.
14 Jim’s short story published in New Mexico Quarterly Review (Spring 1944).
15 Jim’s brother, who was running wild at the time.
16 St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Paul, Minnesota.
17 Postmortem room.
18 Walter J. Domrese, warden’s assistant at Sandstone Federal Penitentiary.
19 A conceit of E. B. White’s in “Dusk in Fierce Pajamas,” The New Yorker, January 27, 1934.
20 Jim had written some edifying pieces for The Catholic Worker.
21 Harold Weinstein, fellow inmate at Sandstone.
22 Postmortems.
23 See Introduction.
24 Michael Baius (1513–1589), Belgian theologian.
25 Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719), French Jansenist theologian.
26 St. Paul Saints, American Association baseball team. Farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers at this time.
27 Harry Truman.
28 Henry Volkening.
2. With you it will be like being ten years old again
1 Joke.
2 Thomas à Kempis (ca. 1380–1471), author of The Imitation of Christ. He was revered by Detachers: a contemplative in contrast to the highly active Hyneses.
3 This would have been based on Jim’s stint in prison, his pacifism, and, above all, his not having what the Wahls considered a job.
4 Church of the Sacred Heart, Robbinsdale, where Garrelts was assistant.
5 First published in Cross Section, 1947.
6 Jim’s mother converted to Catholicism ten years after her marriage.
3. Should a giraffe have to dig dandelions?
1 Bertha “Birdie” Seberger Strobel.
2 John Haskins.
3 By Robert Gibbings (1945).
4 George Barnett (joke).
5 Garrelts and Jim were going to write a play together.
6 Published in Accent (Winter 1946).
7 Egan.
8 Sister Eugene Marie Earley (1901–1993), surgical nurse; involved with the Catholic Worker movement; worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital; good friend of Father Egan’s.
4. It would seem you have the well-known business sense
1 St. Cloud department store that included a bookshop.
2 Alcuin Deutsch, abbot of St. John’s Abbey from 1921 to 1950.
3 A possible future dwelling for Jim and Betty—to be purchased with the assistance of others.
4 Dick Keefe.
5. I am like Daniel Boone cutting my way through that bourgeois wilderness
1 Father Burner is the main character in “Prince of Darkness.” The story was condemned by many members of the Catholic clergy.
2 They were going to begin their married life living in Betty’s parents’ summer cottage on a lake.
6. Something seems to be missing, and you say it’s me
1 Asking for his editorial comments, Jim had sent Shattuck stories for what became the collection Prince of Darkness, and Other Stories.
2 Novel by Edward F. Murphy, SJ (Bruce, 1944).
3 Ray Blades had been manager of the St. Paul Saints.
4 Eventually published in Accent (Spring 1947).
5 One of Betty’s teachers at St. Benedict’s.
7. Camaraderie
1 Columbia, July 1947. Review of Jim’s Prince of Darkness and Sylvester’s Moon Gaffney.
2 A version of Parcheesi.
3 Berlin-born poet and Quaker.
4 Caliri reviewed the book for Sign, August 1947 (“One would like to take Mr. Powers around and introduce him to some of the truly admirable priests that one has met”).
5 Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
6 British economist.
7 Bishop Bernard James Sheil (1888–1969), auxiliary bishop of Chicago and celebrated advocate of social justice.
8 Agnes Smedley (1892–1950), writer, journalist, Communist sympathizer, chronicler of the Chinese revolution. She was at the center of a divisive campaign launched by Lowell to eject Elizabeth Ames from Yaddo in 1948.
9 Joe Lasker (1919–), artist.
10 Robert A. Taft, conservative senator from Ohio, who wrote the Taft-Hartley Act.
11 Assistant at Yaddo; violently anti-Communist; resigned in 1948 during the Agnes Smedley imbroglio.
12 Artist, member of the Movement.
13 The Reverend Walter T. Gouch.
14 Elizabeth Ames.
> 15 Gordon Zahn and Leonard Doyle.
16 He planned to visit John Haskins and Robert Lowell.
17 Harry Sylvester.
18 “There was a [illegible] writer named Powers; / Got stinking on 3 whiskey sours, / And entered his car at the races; / But after he’d gone fifty paces / The horses had finished for hours.” Robert Lowell to J. F. Powers, September 24, 1947.
19 Henry Volkening.
20 Recommending Jim for a Guggenheim grant.
21 Morton Dauwen Zabel (1901–1964).
22 Jack Howe and Davy Davison, Frank Lloyd Wright’s two “young geniuses” from Sandstone prison.
8. I’ve a few stipulations to read into the rural-life-family-life jive
1 Preparatory seminary at the College (as it was called then) of St. Thomas, St. Paul.
2 Chicago seminary.
3 Avon’s population was around 880; St. Joe’s (St. Joseph’s) around 1,200.
4 Edward F. Murphy, SJ, Père Antoine (1947), published by Doubleday.
5 Caroline Gordon (1895–1981), novelist and critic. Recent convert to Catholicism and married to Allen Tate at the time.
6 The Gallery of Living Catholic Authors, a literary hall of fame for contemporary Catholic authors founded in 1932 by Sister Mary Joseph Scherer, an English teacher and librarian at Webster College in Missouri.
7 Invited to join the gallery, Lowell, a Catholic convert (for a time), told them that he had fallen away. (“I had to break the bad news to them, and now masses are being said for me—God rest my soul; you seem to be the only one that doesn’t go in for that sort of thing.” Lowell to J. F. Powers, February 5, 1948.)
8 “Bad” as in German “spa.” Joke.
9 The Portable Faulkner, edited by Malcolm Cowley.
10 Father Rudolph G. Bandas (1896–1969), a particular bugbear of Egan and Jim. Rector of St. Paul Seminary at the time; theologian; author of many religious books.
11 Francis Joseph Schenk (1901–1969), bishop of Crookston, Minnesota, at the time.
12 Joke.
13 Associated with The Catholic Worker and rural lifers.
14 Sports announcer and sports program host.
15 Randall Jarrell (1914–1965), poet, critic, novelist.
16 Garrelts and Keefe.
17 Lowell’s divorce from Jean Stafford.
9. The truth about me is that I just don’t qualify as the ideal husband
1 An instrument used for sprinkling holy water.
2 Review of The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh, Commonweal, July 16, 1948.
3 Review of A Long Fourth, and Other Stories, by Peter Taylor, Commonweal, July 16, 1948. Taylor (1917–1994) was a short-story writer, novelist, and playwright.
4 Elizabeth Ames.
5 Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005), elected to the U.S. House of Representatives the next day.
6 Hoping for a Republican victory in the presidential election—which the Democrat Harry Truman won.
7 Alben W. Barkley (1877–1956), who was Truman’s running mate.
8 From Collegeville and St. Cloud.
9 Burlesque theatre in Minneapolis.
10. If you can’t win with me, stop playing the horses!
1 Roethke.
2 Renewal of the Guggenheim.
3 Father Bandas.
4 Prince of Darkness.
5 Play-by-play announcer for the St. Paul Saints baseball and hockey teams.
6 Lexington Park, St. Paul.
7 Kentucky Derby.
8 Joe H. Palmer, racing correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. “Assistant,” meaning parish assistant (a priest).
9 Caroline Gordon.
10 Catholic Worker.
11. I’m beyond the point where I think the world is waiting for me as for the sunrise
1 Manager of the Brewers.
2 Good shepherd (Latin).
3 Don Humphrey.
4 For collections at Mass.
5 The Grand National at Aintree, the race upon which the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstakes was based.
6 Harry Sylvester.
7 Robert Paul Mohan, review of The Cardinal, by Henry Morton Robinson, Priest, June 1950: “Mr. Robinson … has none of the depressing negativity of Powers or Sylvester, who have also given pictures of the clerical scene.”
8 The Sun Herald. (Jim has the name wrong here.) A national Catholic daily newspaper (with an antiwar position) founded in 1950 in Kansas City, Missouri, it lasted six months.
9 Albany, New York.
10 “Youth” section in the St. Cloud diocesan newspaper (Stearns County pronunciation).
11 Bill Kraft.
12 Bookseller and outspoken advocate of good literature who had a radio show called Books and Brent.
13 Yaddo.
14 John Louis Bonn, SJ, novelist and teacher.
15 Huge college basketball scandal involving point-shaving and payoffs from bookies.
16 Joke.
17 From The New Yorker.
18 “Defection of a Favorite,” The New Yorker, November 10, 1951.
19 A society of Spanish-inspired flagellants in New Mexico and Colorado.
12. The water, the green, the vines, stone walls, the pace, all to my taste
1 “I don’t feel right about the Church here. Even thought the poor Protestants might be holding back the deluge, one finger in the dike.” Journal, November 4, 1951.
2 Parish priest (the pastor).
3 One of Father Fennelly’s pamphlets.
4 Clark Bars—Jim’s favorite.
5 Racecourse south of Dublin.
6 Two shillings.
7 A book of prayers.
8 Egan’s to-do lists.
9 Don Humphrey.
10 William Howard, 8th Earl of Wicklow (1902–1978), converted to Roman Catholicism in 1932.
11 Prince of Darkness.
12 Joke.
13 Como Park, St. Paul.
14 They hoped for a Republican president.
15 A. A. Stagg, University of Chicago football coach for forty-one years.
13. In Ireland, I am an American. Here, I’m nothing
1 “Tide Rips in the Teacups,” The New Yorker, December 13, 1952.
2 “The Devil Was the Joker,” The New Yorker, March 21, 1953.
3 Peter W. Bartholome (1893–1982), coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud, 1942–1953. He became bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud in 1953 and retired in 1968.
4 A 1952 movie, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, and Barry Fitzgerald.
5 Jim’s agent, Henry Volkening.
6 Garrelts and Keefe.
7 Joseph F. Busch (1866–1953), bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud, 1915–1953.
8 Mother of Peter Bartholome, now bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud.
14. A place too good to believe we live in
1 Eugene and Abigail McCarthy.
2 Ammon Hennacy (1893–1970), pacifist, member of the Catholic Worker movement, Christian anarchist.
3 Father Pacifique Roy, who prepared a retreat at St. John’s given by Father Hugo that Jim attended.
4 Father Emeric Lawrence, OSB.
5 Newman Club in Minneapolis.
6 Philip Hughes, SJ (1895–1967).
7 John Courtney Murray, SJ (1904–1967), moral and ecumenical theologian.
8 Leonard P. Cowley (1913–1973), pastor of St. Olaf’s and head of the Newman Club at that time.
15. I had a very fine time—laughing as I hadn’t in years
1 On the way from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia.
2 Roethke.
3 As in fact became the case.
16. There have been times, though not recently, when it has seemed to me that I might escape the doom of man
1 Both played baseball for the St. Paul Saints.
2 Walter Alston. Big year for the Dodgers, who finally won the World Series.
3 To spend Thanksgiving in Beardsley—as he preferred.
4 With Jim’s “Blue Isl
and,” Accent (Autumn 1955).
5 Not until the next year: “Zeal,” Commonweal, February 10, 1956.
6 Garrelts.
7 Bridgeman’s ice cream.
8 The day after Thanksgiving.
9 A pooka, in the shape of a large rabbit, played a part in the movie Harvey (1950).
10 Had been in favor of birth control and eventually left the Church.
11 Railroad salvage store, much frequented by Jim.
12 In Accent (Autumn 1955).
13 The New Yorker, November 5, 1955.
14 Bishop Bartholome.
15 Father Robert Hovda and Father Henry Fehrenbacher, liberal priests, associated with the Catholic Worker movement and liturgical reform.
16 Orville Freeman (1918–2003).
17 Whether the game—so popular in Catholic parishes as a way of levying money—should be illegal under the antigambling laws.
18 Thomas d’Esterre Roberts, SJ, Black Popes: Authority; Its Use and Abuse.
17. Four children now, Jack. And this year, the man said, bock beer is not available in this area
1 Published in Commonweal, February 10, 1956.
2 Walter Ong, SJ (1912–2003), professor of English, historian, and philosopher.
3 Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), French Thomist philosopher and social thinker.
4 Review of The Presence of Grace, Commonweal, March 30, 1956.
5 Catholic Worker.
6 Joke evocative of “the green banana” in Jim’s short story of that title. To give “the green banana,” meant roughly, in Jim’s and his friends’ parlance, to dismiss or reject, in this case linking it to the powerful Cardinal Giovanni Montini (who later became Pope Paul VI).
7 Chicago Sun-Times, April 1, 1956.
8 Huntington Hartford Foundation, a colony for artists and writers.
9 Food supplement.
10 Don Humphrey.
11 Wanderer, May 1956.
12 Northern League baseball team, New York Giants–affiliated Class C team at the time.
