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

BETTY POWERS

Milwaukee

ca. December 8, 1949

Dear Betty,

[…] Del Flanagan of St Paul won a big fight in Detroit last night, over Sandy Saddler, the featherweight champion, but as fate would have it, Flanagan was announced from the ring as “from Minneapolis.” Such, you see, are my considerations. […]

Love

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Milwaukee

March 29, 1950

Dear Father Egan,

[…] I trust you saw where the Irish race5 was won by Freebooter, the favorite, ridden by Jimmy Power, a Waterford boy — which is where we, and all Powerses, presumably hail from. A barkeep in Chicago won $70,000. The state gets more than half of it, though, so maybe it’s just as well.

Katherine Anne has taken to sitting in my chair here in the study. I have to sit on the edge of it. It is symbolic, I think, of the years ahead. I’ve had a good, satisfying life, however, strong on purpose, and so I am not reluctant to step down and let the younger ones take over. How is that old grey head of yours? Easter promises to be an ordeal. I have only six days off — is there something wrong with Easter in the Jesuit view? […] Write.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Milwaukee

June 12, 1950

Dear Fr Egan,

Your letters and The Priest came today, and glad to hear from you. Thanks for The Priest , but it’s just pathetic (such ignorance no longer gives me a moment’s pause; I expect it), not as regards Harry6 and me, for we seem to be running as an entry at all the tracks, but just that a man could wade through The Cardinal and not know it was fake from the first page on.7 I tell you, Father, there is much work to be done — but I for one am not going to do it. I’m busy with my handicapping and radio programs every day, yes, and even with what I call my writing.

I had to call Chicago Saturday morning, seeing that Greek Song was going in the Belmont. Placed an across-the-board wager with my father, who in turn placed it with my brother, who in turn placed it with the Syndicate. The inevitable happened, or would seem to be the inevitable with Greek Song. He came with a rush in the stretch but was too late. […] He was fourth by a head; at 35 to one, if I’d collected the show bet, I would be ahead. The jockey rode him like a Chinaman, that’s all I can say. Really do think he got a poor ride. I thought of calling you Saturday morning to find out if you wanted in, but now I’m glad I didn’t. You evidently have little faith in me anyway, as a writer, and if you despaired of me as a handicapper, there wouldn’t be much left, would there?

Father, I am not worried about getting a book out. I would like to have one ready, yes, but I’m beyond the point where I think the world is waiting for me as for the sunrise. I gather you think short stories a preparation for novel writing. That is not true. I’m not trying to exonerate myself. The truth is I’m lazy, and after that, a family man, a teacher of creative writing, and finally I don’t care to get a book out just to get a book out; I’d rather make each one count — and in order to do that, the way I nuts around, it takes time. I know too that there’s no demand for a book such as I can write. I am outside the system, the economics of writing, in that sense. Do you know that I’ve cleared more on the one story for The New Yorker (over $1,500) than on my book, which did better than any book of stories in its year except Somerset Maugham’s? […] And now, goodbye.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Milwaukee

Monday, July 24, 1950

Dear Fr Egan,

Your letter and The Herald Sun publicity rec’d.8 I may subscribe to The H-S for a month and renew if it’s any good. I am in the market for a good paper. I wonder if The H-S is it. The prospectus is well written. […] I see no mention of racing news in the table of contents. That’s the acid test. They’ll have that old family-life corn, Somebody Winks who has five children and a sense of humor, and they’ll have Health and Books and the rest; but what of the Sport of Kings? Did you know that in the Albany9 Diocese, during August, the paper has a racing supplement, à la the Yoot Section10 in the Visitor ? Racing is a Christian sport if Ireland is Christian. The Irish are a strange race, fools and wise men at the same time (I suggest you send that to the Catholic Digest for This Struck Me). […]

I played a little golf last week with my brother-in-law11 (he’s employed at the bomb works in New Mexico) and enjoyed that. I may get some clubs again. There’s a course up the road from here. We played with a manufacturer of toilet seats who happened along and made a nice threesome. I had been shooting an Acushnet Titleist, under the impression that the big pros used them, but the kindly manufacturer, friend of Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen, said they’re all using the Dunlop Maxfli now and had been doing so since Bobby Locke came over a few years ago and burned up the fairways. I know this won’t alter your life much, but it does show you that I’m living.

Jim […]

Greek Song took down $50,000 first money at Arlington a week ago last Saturday. My brother, who subscribes to my service, had him across the board. He (GS) goes in the Arlington Handicap next Saturday. Listen at 3:30, NBC.

JACK CONROY

Milwaukee

August 9, 1950

Dear Jack,

[…] Very warm and dull in Milwaukee. I was in Chicago last week for a day. I was on North Clark but only in a streetcar. I find I’m getting a little old for the good life. I toured the Near North Side in daytime, alone, and meditated on the vanished splendor. I doubt that it’s vanished from anywhere but me. I heard Nelson Algren on the Chez Show , a radio program emanating from the Sapphire Bar of the Chez Paree — you see I’ve sunk to the lower depths — and he got off a line about Hollywood being a con man’s paradise, which wasn’t a very nice thing to say in that setting. The following week I heard this fellow Stuart Brent,12 and he seems to be in charge of culture in Chicago. He’s sore at New York, apparently, for thinking it’s so smart. […] Drop me a line, let me know who’s there13 this year, and thanks for the leaflets — do you have one on narcotics? I’m trying to kick my habit.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

November 1, 1950

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] Just six years ago, about this time of day, I was being measured for my whites at St Joseph’s Hospital; I had already been shown my room; and I had a great hunger for coffee and cake, which I satisfied at Mother Merrill’s and Mickey’s Diner, alternating so as not to seem an addict. It was the start of an era which closed with matrimony; then there was another era; and now, I think, I am somewhere in the middle of the one after that. […] If there were some way of becoming writer in residence at, say, Belmont, I do think that may be the field for me. I’ll never know, though, this way, deprived of even a Form .

Waugh sent me a signed copy of Helena , “with warm regards,” and I’m grateful for that. Joe Dever messed up the review in The Commonweal . I don’t see why they don’t remove him from the reviewing staff. I think Joe can write some, but he’s no reviewer. His mentor, Fr John Louis Bonn,14 was here some weeks ago, from Boston College — he has a new novel, the Catholic Book Club selection — and I could see where Joe picked up part of his act, the worst part. I met Bonn at Pick’s one night and found him fairly interesting. Then the lecture … it was as rough as anything I’ve ever heard. All he needed was an electric cane and a rubber nose. I mean it was pure ham, and to top it off, he ended on that Fulton Sheen pitch, whispering and groaning about our Lord Jesus Christ in the Tabernacle, which has nothing to do with anything he’d said. Shades of our old retreat master at QCA, Fr Peter Crumbley, OFM. […] Please write.