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

HARVEY EGAN

Yaddo

July 9, 1947

Mon pere,

Your letter and two spot rec’d. Saratoga does not open until August, and so I’ll try to keep your deposit until then. I like your system: an 8–1 bet in the fourth, then a 3–1 in the fifth. If that does not produce results, I do not know what will. Well, we arrived here without a bit of trouble, not even a flat, and our merry Chev rolled all the way without a cough. Chevrolet builds great cars! Since coming here, we’ve not done a lot of work, though some, and there are no excuses for not working. It is not an amusement center; everybody is working on a book or painting a picture or chiseling a bust, and production means survival once we leave this haven of rest, and so there isn’t much loafing — at least if there is, everyone is careful to do it in private. We have a couple of big rooms and a bath but use just one. It’s two or three times as big as our house in Avon. We have breakfast from 8:15 to 9:15, lunch in our rooms (they pack it) at any time, and dinner at 6:30. Food is very good, about the best I’ve had, except in certain rectories. Among the notables are JF, his wife, Marguerite Young, Robert Lowell, Owen Dodson, Bucklin Moon, Arna Bontemps, Michael Seide. Others, but I doubt that they’d mean much to you. I see mostly Moon and Theodore Roethke: we form the non-intellectual center. But do some fishing with Lowell. The little lakes are full of bass. Went to Mass Sunday and heard an intelligible sermon.

Emerson sent me Riley Hughes’s review from Columbia ; it was quite flattering to me; not so to Harry Sylvester.1 Emerson wonders if it will make for strife between the authors. No doubt, but then Harry is selling, and I am not, and there should be some consolation for him in that. There are 25,000 copies of his book in print now. Mine, Moon tells me, is doing much better than expected but is still under 2,000, I think. Book business is very bad, and of course short stories always go to the post with two strikes against them. Thanks for sending the Best Sellers review. I thought it rather spotty for them. Favorable enough, but not very well done. For instance, there is no character in my book guilty, so far as I’m concerned, of gluttony; certainly not Fr Burner, or the priest in “The Lord’s Day.”

I’ve been thinking a lot of places since coming here and have just about decided that St Paul is the place for me. It is about right, it’s old, it’s not too big, I have what friends I have there, and perhaps I could make it my Dublin. As Dick Keefe told me, “Jim, you’re a city man.” So, if there’s any chance for peace in the future, I think I’ll concentrate on insinuating myself into St Paul. The bomb is the big but. No one here seems to have much hope. Lowell (he’s a convert, you know, an ex-con like me, for being a CO) says it’s pacifism or nothing, says we must become pacifists. I say I don’t know, maybe we should become travelers. But where is the big question then. Geographically, I prefer the East to the Middle West. The country doesn’t go on and on forever; there are more trees and hills. Well, well, I know you don’t hold still for much of that kind of talk. This is a huge old pile, in the Summit Avenue manner, only bigger, and is crammed with junk: statues, bishops’ chairs, ugly pictures, miniatures, fountains, books, etc., possibly the biggest heap of its sort for many miles. I rather like it, though. Enough for this time … pax.

Jim […]

See Monty Woolley, the actor with the beard, all the time in one bar, waiting for a live one or somebody he can insult. They say he’s queer as a crutch.

CHARLES SHATTUCK

Yaddo

July? 1947

Dear Chuck,

A line to let you know how things are in these parts. We’ve been here since the first of July, drove it all the way with no trouble with my runabout, which I believe you have a picture of. And now that we have it here, the runabout, I am quite the most popular person; Yaddo lies more than a mile out of town, and the bars, of course, are in the town. My most regular passengers are Buck Moon, Theodore Roethke (“The Beast of Bennington”), Robert Lowell. The first two are most regular, sometimes go without me, and Lowell is usually likewise broke, though it’s more oversight with him; he forgets to cash checks. […] There are some Brooklyn painters, and they are awful. Also a few analysts posing as writers, also awful. We play croquet evenings, quite the bloodiest thing I’ve been mixed up in since I gave up Pollyanna, the Glad Game.2 […] Ruth Domino3 is sort of a fixture here — at least she puts out the mail and has charge of library books — but I do not know much about her, except her accent is German. Lowell says she was investigated by the FBI last spring for being a Communist, but then so many of us have been investigated by the FBI, even you. […]

Pax,

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Yaddo

July 23, 1947

Dear Father Egan,

[…] Lowell apparently is having his dark days. He says he is “not a practicing Catholic,” but I will not give him the satisfaction of asking why not. Something to do with his marriage. His wife is Jean Stafford, author of Boston Adventure and The Mountain Lion (Harcourt, Brace), but she is or was a Catholic before him. I figure characters like Lowell and myself flourish without direct apostolic work. The bark is always there. He knows it. He can climb on whenever he gets tired enough. Pamphlets and all that are out with his kind. He is a very nice guy. It’s just a matter of time. Enough. Pax.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Yaddo

August 20, 1947

Dear Fr Egan,

Yes, there you are, lounging around, living the good life, and here I am up to my neck in handicapping and creative labors. I am grateful to you for all the reviews. […] Who is Rev. E. J. Drummond, SJ, PhD? Is he the dean of the graduate school, Marquette University? Is it true that perhaps my hand is not as yet sure in the handling of complex symbols? What are complex symbols? Can I find them in the Racing Form ? I am at sea. Should I look up Fortunata Caliri4 in New York and get taken around? What would Betty say? All in all it’s very funny, and I only wish there were more such reviews. I would not like to be panned, the way Harry is being, at least not for the same reasons, but I do enjoy being dissected by these English teachers. […]

Haven’t been to the track. Last time over saw Stymie beaten by outsider, Rico Monte, the Argentine beetle. This town, when we enter it, is full of New York touts and torpedoes and their women. Go in for a beer now and then, Michelob; “Glass a Mick, Jack.” Seldom see or recognize the better classes, though we did see Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics lady, and Harry Warner, of Warner Bros Pictures, the other night at the horse auction. Harry paid $44,000 for a yearling filly by War Admiral out of Betsy Ross II (please pass that info on to Fr Casey). […]

They postponed the drawing on the Buick at St Clement’s here. We have a ticket. The lady who “does” our rooms says Father said everything was going so well he thought they’d extend the carnival a few days, postpone the drawing, and besides it rained Saturday night. You should have his job. He sits out on the sidewalk downtown with the Buick and helps the eighth-grade girls make change. I hope we win, not that we need a new car.

Pax,

Jim

Jim and Betty left Yaddo for New York City on September 2. Betty took the train for Minnesota on September 4. Jim returned to Yaddo on September 5.

BETTY POWERS

Yaddo

September 5, 1947, Friday afternoon,

a few minutes after returning

Dear Betty,

I don’t quite know where you must be now, probably in Chicago, or coming into Chicago, or about to leave Chicago. It is around 2:30 here. I had an egg sandwich, clam chowder, and a piece of pie downtown before getting a cab and coming out; all at remarkable low prices. It was raining this morning when I went to Grand Central, as it was yesterday evening when we went, and so I took a cab, though I’d thought of walking. Well, after I came back from taking you to the train last night, I was pretty sad and tired. I took a bath and napped until Buck came, which was almost ten. Then we talked for a while, went out for a beer, only one, at Jimmy Ryan’s, a jive joint on 52nd Street, and walked up Broadway, which was truly awful in the heat, though I wish I’d thought of taking you there — just for the horror of it. […]